The best and most beautiful things
in the world cannot be seen
or even touched.  They must be
felt with the heart.

Helen Keller

Reading in my study late one night, I was reminded that the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre had argued that we invent ourselves by virtue of the multitude of our choices.  And Rollo May, in his intriguing book The Courage to Create, says, "Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.  The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness."

Have you given much thought to the fact that you create yourself?  You do, to an altogether unsuspected extent, simply by the choices you make, by the things you decide to do or not to do.

As the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard well said, "The self is only that which it is in the process of becoming."  So it is that an adult can stand in front of a full-length mirror and take a good, long look at what he or she has created.

We leave home, we form ourselves into new people, and we learn, as Thomas Wolfe learned, that we can't go home again--that we don't fit as well as we used to.  We're different.  We wonder, after a visit--as we leave to return to our everyday lives--what happened, if something is wrong, what the strangeness was.  It is simply that we are different now, and going back home again is like trying to get a two-year-old shoe on a teenager.  It's just not going to fit anymore.

We have shaped ourselves into new people, and we have done so by our decisions.  There's no going back, of course, and I guess most of us wouldn't want to if we could, even though we're acutely conscious of mistakes we've made.  We have to remember that each of us is new at this business of living and content ourselves with the fact that most of us have plenty of time to make good decisions in the future.

If there's a rule in making decisions, I suppose it is to listen to that inner voice and try to make decisions that tend to be growth oriented.  There's really no standing still, even if we'd like to.

I often wonder how many parents in poor families have said to their children, "I want you to get an education and make something of yourself."  The old term "Make something of yourself" carries with it the clear message that we invent--we make--ourselves.

I do think, however, that most try to play it safe.  That is, they select those decisions that seem to carry the least risk of failure and by doing so live out their lives well below their real potential as persons.  Sayings such as "I'm not going to stick my neck out" and "Don't rock the boat," to say nothing of the popular "Take it easy" and "Never volunteer," all indicate a reluctance to live fully extended or at the leading edge of life.

Professor Sidney Hook of Columbia University wrote:  "My observations lead me to the conclusion that human beings have suffered greater deprivations from their fear of life than from its abundance.  The most deplorable insecurities are those which prevent human beings from deviating from traditional routines, which prevent them from living their own lives in their own reflective styles."

Sydney Hook goes on to remind us that "When we learn to be unafraid, the insecure and uncertain lose their terrors for us.  And we can learn to be unafraid through habit and reflection."

This simple strategy has had remarkable results for virtually everyone I know who has tried it.  The almost immediate results include increased patience, added perspective, and, as a side benefit, more gratitude and respect from others.

The strategy itself is remarkably simple.  It involves nothing more than pausing--breathing--after the person to whom you are speaking is finished.  At first, the time gap between your voices may seem like an eternity--but in reality, it amounts to only a fraction of a second of actual time.  You will get used to the power and beauty of breathing, and you will come to appreciate it as well.  It will bring you closer to, and earn you more respect from, virtually everyone you come in contact with.  You'll find that being listened to is one of the rarest and most treasured gifts you can offer.  All it takes is intention and practice.

If you observe the conversations around you, you'll notice that, often, what many of us do is simply wait for our turn to speak.  We're not really listening to the other person, but simply waiting for an opening to express our own view.  We often complete other people's sentences, or say things like, "Yeah, yeah," or "I know," very rapidly, urging them to hurry up so that we can have our turn.  It seems like talking to one another is sometimes more like sparring back and forth like fighters or Ping-Pong balls than it is enjoying or learning from the conversation.

This harried form of communication encourages us to criticize points of view, overreact, misinterpret meaning, impute false motives, and form opinions, all before our fellow communicator is even finished speaking.  No wonder we are so often annoyed, bothered, and irritated with one another.  Sometimes, with our poor listening skills, it's a miracle that we have any friends at all!

I spent most of my life waiting for my turn to speak.  If you're at all like me, you'll be pleasantly amazed at the softer reactions and looks of surprise as you let others completely finish their thought before you begin yours.  Often, you will be allowing someone to feel listened to for the very first time.  You will sense a feeling of relief coming from the person to whom you are speaking--and a much calmer, less rushed feeling between the two of you.  No need to worry that you won't get your turn to speak--you will.  In fact, it will be more rewarding to speak because the person you are speaking to will pick up on your respect and patience and will begin to do the same.
  

Whose Standards?

We all have to live by standards, don't we?  We face so many situations that demand decisions from us that standards can greatly simplify things when we have to choose one course of action or another.  And if we're consistent with our standards, we can develop a life in which we're not constantly faced with ethical or moral dilemmas, or guilt feelings over having decided to do something that we later regret.

Some standards are simple:  for example, I won't accept any money or goods from anyone if I know they're stolen.  That's pretty much a no-brainer, right?  But by sticking to this standard, I know that I'm keeping myself from having pretty significant problems with other people or law-enforcement officials in the future.  Plus, I keep my conscience in good shape, and I don't have to spend precious time rationalizing, trying to justify my actions.

Another standard that I keep is that of honesty in all my dealings with other people.  I won't lie about anything in order to get myself a better deal or to earn more money--in fact, I sometimes go the other way and give more truth than may be absolutely necessary.  In doing so, again, I keep a clear conscience and I never have to worry about someone coming back to me claiming they were "cheated," and then having to deal with the new situation because of my own lack of standards.

With other people, a standard that I keep is not to try to make jokes that will hurt other people or cut them down.  One thing that I admired about Bill Cosby is that he actually had someone who looked at scripts for his shows in order to identify and eliminate "negative humor"--jokes that tried to get laughs by cutting someone else down.  This is one that I'm still constantly working on, for there are so many people who use this kind of humor regularly that it's easy to do what everyone else is doing at the moment and join in the joke-making.

But the question that I often ask myself about standards is this:  Do I have any right to impose my standards of behavior on others?  Do I have any right to expect that other people will live up to MY standards?

And while I'm tempted to say that most standards are universal, I know that's not true:  the simple and true answer to both questions is "no."

Just because I believe that honesty is the best policy, I still don't have the right to impose this standard upon my stepkids, and I have no right to judge them harshly if they don't live up to my standard.  They are developing their own standards in life, and while I'd like to think that I can help them along by imposing mine on them, it's very important that they develop their own through their own learning experiences.  Their own standards are the ones that are going to last.

I may get upset if someone is rude to another person, but in that person's mind, he or she may not have been rude at all.  I may expect someone else to be kind and courteous to the cashier at the supermarket, and I may be upset if they don't act in a way that I feel is appropriate when they don't greet the cashier and then take their groceries without a "thank you."  But that person definitely grew up with a completely different family and learned to do things in completely different ways.  To him or her, they haven't been rude at all--definitely not friendly, but definitely not rude, either.  If they see a trip to the supermarket as a strictly functional visit and don't think of the human-to-human interaction with the cashier, then they have no real need to be courteous and friendly, do they?

But very often I see things through the filter of my own expectations based on my own standards.  Do I have the right to judge others based on those expectations?  Hardly.

I've grown to value the act of greeting people warmly and acknowledging their existence as fellow human beings.  There are cultures in the world, though--and many of them--in which such greetings are seen as insincere, unnecessary, and even potentially insulting.  I wouldn't do well in such cultures unless I were willing to completely abandon my own standards in that situation and not expect others to live up to my standards, too.

On the other hand, I've worked with people who have virtually no standards concerning work, and they do very little at all.  When their lack of standards starts affecting other people in negative ways--by making them take up the slack for unfinished work, for example--then something needs to be done.  We still may not be able to instill our own standards in a person, but at least we can remove the person from a situation in which he or she is causing more harm than good.

It's a great thing to have standards by which we can live full and happy lives.  But when we start to universalize our personal standards, we're on track to creating situations in which we judge others and feel disappointment in them simply because of the ways that we feel they should act.  When we do this, we're hurting them and ourselves.  And that's no way to go through life.