Hello!
We're all still here on this beautiful planet of
ours, surrounded by
opportunities to grow and develop and expand who we
are--we hope that you're
able to recognize those chances and take full
advantage of them!
The world is full of wonders and miracles
but
people take their little hands and
cover their eyes and see
nothing. -Israel Baal Shem
Don't laugh at youth for their affectations;
they are only
trying on one face after another to find their own.
-Logan P. Smith
We should never be ashamed to own
we have been in the
wrong,
which is but saying in other words, that we are
wiser today than
we were yesterday. -Jonathan
Swift
They who labor diligently need
never despair,
for all things are accomplished by
diligence and labor. -Menander
The impulse frequently arises in me to squeeze
another this or another that into this moment.
Just this phone call, just stopping off here on my
way there. Never mind that it might be in the
opposite direction.
I've learned to identify this impulse and mistrust
it. I work hard at saying no to it. It
would have me eat breakfast with my eyes riveted to
the cereal box, reading for the hundredth time the
dietary contents of the contents, or the amazing
free offer from the company. This impulse
doesn't care what it feeds on, as long as it's
feeding. The newspaper is an even better draw,
or the L.L. Bean catalogue, or whatever else is
around. It scavenges to fill time, conspires
with my mind to keep me unconscious, lulled in a fog
of numbness to a certain extent, just enough to fill
or overfill my belly while I actually miss
breakfast. It has me unavailable to others at
those times, missing the play of light on the table,
the smells in the room, the energies of the moment,
including arguments and disputes, as we come
together before going our separate ways for the day.
I like to practice voluntary simplicity to counter
such impulses and make sure nourishment comes at a
deep level. It involves intentionally doing
only one thing at a time and making sure I am here
for it. Many occasions present
themselves: taking a walk, for instance, or
spending a few moments with the dog in which I am
really with the dog. Voluntary simplicity
means going fewer places in one day rather than
more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I
can do more, acquiring less so I can have
more. It all ties in.
It's not a real
option for me as a father of young children, a breadwinner, a
husband, an oldest son to my parents, a person who cares deeply
about his work to go off to one Walden Pond or another and sit
under a tree for a few years, listening to the grass grow and
the seasons change, much as the impulse beckons at times.
But within the organized chaos and complexity of family life and
work, with all their demands and responsibilities, frustrations
and unsurpassed gifts, there is ample opportunity for choosing
simplicity in small ways.
Slowing everything down is a big part of this. Telling my
mind and body to stay put with my daughter rather than answering
the phone, not reacting to inner impulses to call someone who
"needs calling" right in that moment, choosing not to
acquire new things on impulse, or even to automatically answer
the siren call of magazines or television or movies on the first
ring are all ways to simplify one's life a little. Others
are maybe just to sit for an evening and do nothing, or to read
a book, or go for a walk alone or with a child or with my wife,
to restack the woodpile or look at the moon, or feel the air on
my face under the trees, or go to sleep early.
I practice saying no to keep my life simple, and I find I never
do it enough. It's an arduous discipline all its own, and
well worth the effort. Yet it is also tricky. There
are needs and opportunities to which one must respond. A
commitment to simplicity in the midst of the world is a delicate
balancing act. It is always in need of retuning, further
inquiry, attention. But I find the notion of voluntary
simplicity keeps me mindful of what is important, of an ecology
of mind and body and world in which everything is interconnected
and every choice has far-reaching consequences. You don't
get to control it all. But choosing simplicity whenever
possible adds to life an element of deepest freedom which so
easily eludes us, and many opportunities to discover that less
may actually be more.
* * *
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your
affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand;
instead of a million count half a dozen. . . . In the midst of
this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and
storms and quicksands and the thousand-and-one items to be
allowed for, that a person has to live, if one would not founder
and go to the bottom and not make one's port at all, by dead
reckoning, and one must be a great calculator indeed who
succeeds. Simplify, simplify.
-Henry David Thoreau
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One of the enriching blessings of growing older all
the time is that it has a way of improving one’s
commitment to laughter — or at least it
should. The person without a good sense of humor
is a person to avoid as though he were a known carrier
of the plague.
Horace
Walpole once said, “I have never yet seen or heard
anything serious that was not ridiculous.” And
Samuel Butler said, “The one serious conviction that
a man should have is that nothing is to be taken
seriously.” It has been said that seriousness
is the only refuge of the shallow. Oscar Wilde
said, “It is a curious fact that the worst work is
always done with the best intentions, and that people
are never so trivial as when they take themselves very
seriously.”
I
remember that when I was in the service, one of the
toughest jobs I had was to keep from laughing at the
wrong times — during an admiral’s inspection, for
example. There is nothing funnier than the
seriousness of the military, especially high-ranking
military. The fancy costumes, the panoply, the
shining sabers, the serious faces — it was all, to
me, hilariously funny.
We
can be serious about situations. When a
youngster is ill or hurt, or someone insults your
spouse, you can get very serious about the situation
in a hurry. But that’s not taking ourselves
seriously. That’s different.
The
thing that bothered me about Hemingway, as much as I
admired his work, was that I thought he tended to take
himself too seriously. He didn’t seem to be
able to laugh at himself. And I think he
suffered from this flaw in his character.
I
have found it a good rule of thumb to be slightly
suspicious of anyone who takes himself too
seriously. There’s usually something fishy
there someplace. I think this is why we love children
so much: Life is a game to them. They will
do their best at whatever work is given them, but they
never seem to lose their ebullient sense of humor;
there is always a sparkle of humor in their
eyes. When a child lacks this, he or she is
usually in need of help.
Dictators
are famous for their lack of humor. The mark of
a cruel person is that he doesn’t seem to be able to
see anything funny in the world. And, a sense of
humor was what was so great about Mark Twain. No
matter how serious the subject, he could find the
humor in it and bring it out. All the great
comedians have this ability to see what’s funny in
the so-called serious situation. They can poke
fun at themselves. There are those who believe
that a sense of humor is the only thing that has kept
the human race from totally extinguishing itself.
People
who are emotionally healthy, with a sense of
proportion, are cheerful people. They tend to
look upon the bright side of things and see a lot of
humor in their daily lives. They’re not
Pollyannas — they know what’s going on and that a
lot of it’s not at all funny — but they don’t
permit the dark side of things to dominate their
lives. To my mind, when a person lacks a sense
of humor, there’s something pretty seriously wrong
with him.
Samuel
Butler said, “A sense of humor keen enough to show a
man his own absurdities as well as those of other
people will keep a man from the commission of all
sins, or nearly all, save those that are worth
committing.”
It
took a sense of humor to write that, and only people
with blank spaces where their senses of humor should
be will find it offensive. There’s something
so healthy about laughter, especially when it’s
directed at ourselves.
There
are times for all of us when all the laughter seems to
be gone, but we should not permit these periods to
last too long. When we’ve lost our sense of
humor, there isn’t very much left. We become
ridiculous. We must then go to war against the
whole world, and that’s a war we cannot win.
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
Sometimes
you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what
you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you
must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you’re
in the dark. Even when you’re falling.
I've known many, many people who truly have had no idea what
recreation means. They might have had an idea of what it's
supposed to be in the backs of their minds, but they never truly
engaged in any sort of recreation themselves, and without
exception, they paid very heavy prices for this neglect in their
lives. There are few things as important to us as true
recreation, putting ourselves in situations in which we are able
to put aside the day-to-day stresses and anxieties and focus fully
on the present moment--in which we're doing something completely
different than we normally do.
In my own life, there are few things that are more important than
recreation. I don't focus on recreation to the extent at
which I neglect my responsibilities, but I do make sure that I set
aside time in order to do things that are fun, that get me out
into nature, and that keep me focused on something different from
the things that I normally focus on, whether that be paying
attention to a hiking trail and my surroundings, walking through a
town or a park where I've never been before, or even playing tag
or throwing a frisbee around with a kid who doesn't have any
desire at all to talk about my job or my family or my bills.
Recreation is about using our bodies in different ways and keeping
our minds focused on something different--in this latter way, it's
definitely a form of meditation when it can keep our thoughts
occupied with thoughts that push out those thoughts that cause us
stress and keep us worried. And when our recreation keeps us
focused on an activity for an extended period of time, we can
return to our thoughts about work or family problems almost with a
new mind, and certainly with a refreshed mind, which can help us
to gain new insights and to tackle problems without also having to
deal with exhaustion.
The
word "recreation" is really a very beautiful
word. It is defined in the dictionary as "the
process of giving new life to something, of
refreshing something, of restoring something."
This something, of course, is the whole person.
Bruno Hans Geba
Few of us would
be cruel enough to run a horse to exhaustion.
But many of us are cruel enough to run ourselves to
exhaustion, especially mental exhaustion. The
symptoms of mental exhaustion generally aren't
visible enough for us to take them for the very real
warning signs that they are, so we allow ourselves
to pass through them, telling ourselves that we're
just tired or cranky or wimpy, and that we should
just drive on and get things done. This is a
very destructive pattern of behavior, though.
When I teach writing, I tell my students that if
they have a five-hour block set aside to write a
paper or to study a unit, it's much better to work
for two hours, then take a twenty- or thirty-minute
walk, and then come back to the work. This
short recreation break can make the difference
between work well done and work finished in a state
of exhaustion--which probably won't be the best work
they can do. The recreation allows them to
shift their thinking to something else so that when
they come back to the subject of their work or
study, their minds are fresher and much more able to
make important connections.
Our age has become so mechanical that this
has also affected
our recreation. People have gotten used
to sitting down and
watching a movie, a ball game, a
television set. It may be good
once in a while, but it
certainly is not good all the time. Our
own faculties, our
imagination, our memory, the ability to do
things with our
mind and our hands–-they need to be exercised.
If we
become too passive, we get dissatisfied.
Maria von Trapp
And I have to
agree with Maria--sitting down and watching
something is not a true form of recreation, for it's
completely passive in nature. Recreation needs
to be active so that our minds can be focused on
something other than a screen--we focus on catching
or hitting a ball, or making something concrete, or
looking at our surroundings. We get our blood
flowing and we stimulate the production of chemicals
that keep us feeling vital and alive. We
remind our bodies that they were created to be
active, and through our activities we allow them to
be so.
"Re-creation" is not simply about
entertainment. It's about taking care of
ourselves and our minds, bodies, and spirits.
It's about taking time away from our everyday
pursuits and using that time to rejuvenate ourselves
so that we can be more effective in what we do, and
so that we can enjoy it more when we get back to our
normal tasks. Too many businesses don't
understand this, and they try to get people to stay
focused only on work, hour after hour, day after
day, week after week. They don't understand
that the breaks that we take for recreation help us
to do a much better job in the time we dedicate to
our work.
Recreation's purpose is not to kill time, but
to make
life, not to keep a person occupied, but to keep them
refreshed; not to offer an escape from life,
but to provide a
discovery of life.
unattributed
What do you
enjoy as a recreational activity? Do you do it
often enough? If not, how could you manage to
work more recreational time into your
schedule? Remember, doing so isn't about
trying to get out of work or to shirk your
responsibilities, but it is about trying to make
sure that you're in an optimal state for making sure
that you meet those responsibilities. Be it a
game of Frisbee or catch with a kid or a friend, or
a nice walk at lunchtime, or a pick-up basketball
game somewhere, you can find opportunities for
recreation almost anywhere--and the benefits for
doing so far outweigh any arguments against taking
the time to re-create yourself.
Just for today I will
remember
that
I am
getting better and
becoming
whole. I
will
realize that I
have
more to
bring
to a relationship
than I did yesterday. Just for
today my
life is
beautiful, I am
beautiful,
and
I have
all I need
to get
through the day.
Katherine
Gardner
The
Trouble Tree
The
carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse
had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire
made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit,
and then his old pickup truck refused to start.
While
I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving,
he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked
toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree,
touching the tips of the branches with both hands. When he opened the door he
underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged
his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.
Afterward,
he walked me to the car. We passed the tree
and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about
what I had seen him do earlier.
"Oh,
that's my trouble tree," he replied. "I know I can't
help having troubles on the job, but one thing is for sure,
troubles don't belong in the house with my wife and
children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night
when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up
again."
"The
funny thing is," he smiled, "when I come out
in the morning to pick them up, there aren't nearly as many
as I remember hanging up the night before."
Everybody
needs a trouble tree.
In
terms of days and moments lived, you’ll never again be as young as
you are right now, so spend this day, the youth of your future, in a
way
that deflects regret. Invest in yourself. Have some fun.
Do something
important. Love somebody extra. In one sense, you’re
just a kid, but
a kid with enough years on her to know that every day is priceless.
Victoria Moran
Younger by the Day
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
™
