Hello
again! We hope that this week is going well
for you, and that our
e-zine this week can provide a positive lift for you
as you go about living
your life and creating new experiences and learning
new things about
life, living, other people, and yourself!
Life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents
or coincidences,
but rather, it's a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite
sublime plan. -
unattributed
Any
business or industry that pays equal rewards to its goof-offs
and its eager-beavers sooner or later will find itself
with more goof-offs than eager-beavers. -
Mike
Delaney
In my day, we didn't have
self-esteem, we had
self-respect,
and no more of it than we had earned. -
Jane Haddam
The
most important education
you get is your own--the one
you learn in solitude. -
Erica
Jong
I could fill a book with stories of people who forgot themselves
into health and happiness. For example, let's take the case
of Margaret Tayler Yates, one of the most popular women in the
United States Navy.
Mrs. Yates is a writer of novels, but none of her mystery stories
is half so interesting as the true story of what happened to her
that fateful morning when the Japanese struck our fleet at Pearl
Harbor. Mrs. Yates had been an invalid for more than a
year: bad heart. She spent twenty-two out of every
twenty-four hours in bed. The longest journey that she
undertook was a walk into the garden to take a sunbath. Even
then, she had to lean on the maid's arm as she walked. She
herself told me that in those days she expected to be an invalid
for the balance of her life. "I would never have really
lived again," she told me, " if the Japanese had not
struck Pearl Harbor and jarred me out of my complacency."
"When this happened," Mrs. Yates said, as she told her
story, "everything was chaos and confusion. One bomb
struck so near my home, the concussion threw me out of bed.
Army trucks rushed out to Hickam Field, Scofield Barracks, and
Kaneohe Bay Air Station, to bring Army and Navy wives and children
to the public schools.
"There
the Red Cross telephoned those who had extra rooms to take them
in. The Red Cross workers knew that I had a telephone beside
my bed, so they asked me to be a clearinghouse of
information.
"So I kept track of where Army and Navy wives
and children were being housed, and all Navy and Army men were
instructed by the Red Cross to telephone me to find out where
their families were.
"I soon discovered that my husband, Commander Robert Raleigh
Yates, was safe. I tried to cheer up the wives who did not
know whether their husbands had been killed; and I tried to give
consolation to the widows whose husbands had been killed--and they
were many. Two thousand, one hundred and seventeen officers
and enlisted men in the Navy and Marine Corps were killed and 960
were reported missing.
"At first I answered these phone calls while lying in
bed. Then I answered them sitting up in bed. Finally,
I got so busy, so excited, that I forgot all about my weakness and
got out of bed and sat by a table. By helping others who
were much worse off than I was, I forgot all about myself; and I
have never gone back to bed again except for my regular eight
hours of sleep each night. I realize now that if the
Japanese had not struck at Pearl Harbor, I would probably have
remained a semi-invalid all my life. I was comfortable in
bed. I was constantly waited on, and I now realize that I
was unconsciously losing my will to rehabilitate myself.
"The attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the greatest tragedies
in American history, but as far as I was concerned, it was one of
the best things that ever happened to me. The terrible
crisis gave me strength that I never dreamed I possessed. It
took my attention off myself and focused it on others. It
gave me something big and vital and important to live for. I
no longer had time to think about myself or care about
myself."
A third of the people who rush to psychiatrists for help could
probably cure themselves if they could only do as Margaret Yates
did: get interested in helping others. My idea?
No, that is approximately what Carl Jung said. And he ought
to know--if anybody does. He said: "About
one-third of my patients are suffering from no clinically defined
neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their
lives." To put it another way, they are trying to thumb
a ride through life--and the parade passes them by. So they
rush to a psychiatrist with [what they see as] their petty, senseless, useless
lives. Having missed the boat, they stand on the wharf,
blaming everyone except themselves and demanding that the world
cater to their self-centered desires. . . .
However humdrum your existence may be, you surely meet some people
every day of your life. What do you do about them? Do
you merely stare through them, or do you try to find out what it
is that makes them tick? How about the postal delivery
person, for example--they travel hundreds of miles every year,
delivering your mail; but have you ever taken the trouble to find
out where he or she lives, or asked to see a snapshot of his or
her family? Did you ever ask if he or she gets tired, or
gets bored?
What about the grocery boy, the newspaper vendor, the chap at the
corner who polishes shoes? These people are human--bursting
with troubles, and dreams, and private ambitions. They are
also burning for the chance to share them with someone. But
do you ever let them? Do you ever show an eager, honest
interest in them or their lives? That's the sort of thing I
mean. You don't have to become a Florence Nightingale or a
social reformer to help improve the world--your own private world;
you can start tomorrow morning with the people you meet!
What's in it for you? Much greater happiness! Greater
satisfaction, and pride in yourself! Aristotle called this
kind of attitude "enlightened selfishness."
Zoroaster said, "Doing good to others is not a duty. It
is a joy, for it increases your own health and
happiness." And Benjamin Franklin summed it up very
simply--"When you are good to others," said Franklin,
"you are best to yourself."
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It doesn't interest me
what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if
you dare to dream of meeting in your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me
how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a
fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me
what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have
touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by
life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of
further pain.
I want to know if you can
sit in pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade
from it or fix it.
I want to know if you can
be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and
let the ecstasy fill you to the tip of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember
the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if
the story you're telling me is true. I want to know if you can
disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the
accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can
be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can
see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can
source your life from God's presence.
I want to know if you can
live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of
a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"
It doesn't interest me to
know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can
get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to
the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn't interest me
who you are, how you came to be here. I
want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me
where or what or with whom you have studied. I
want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls
away.
I want to know if you can
be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.
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.
Passion
doesn't come from business or books or even a connection with
another person. It is a connection to your own life force, the
world around
you and the spirit that connects us all. You are
the source. Books, work,
music, people, sunsets all provide
sparks, but only you can light the fire.
Life in this world moves very quickly these days, and things
change sometimes faster than we're able to keep up with.
Sometimes something that ends up being harmful to us is a part of
our culture for years before we realize the harm that's being
done--just look at how long cigarettes were a normal part of life
until we realized how damaging they were to our
health. Add to that the amount of time it took us to reach a point at
which not smoking is more "normal" and acceptable than
smoking, and you see that we're not always very good at
recognizing serious problems even when they're staring us right in
the face (or entering our lungs and causing serious health
problems).
These days, we still have our share of damaging addictions to
chemicals and substances such as methamphetamine and alcohol and tobacco, but we
also have in our societies several new addictive tendencies that
can be ignored because they seem so harmless--mostly because they
don't have any serious physical side effects that we can
witness. But these addictions are taking over many people,
especially the young, and making life much more difficult for
them. Unless we do something to help the young people combat
these addictions, it seems quite certain that they're going to
develop the addictive sides of their personalities much more
strongly than other aspects of who they are, and that may make
things much more difficult for them in the future.
I
am one of those people at the restaurant with her
spouse, waiting and feeling lonely. My husband is
always
looking at his phone, checking his email or his bank
account,
his Facebook, and his texts. I just sit waiting and
thinking
to myself, Why am I not good enough for him? Why
does
he have to be entertained by everyone and everything
else? It deeply depresses me and he just cannot
understand my point of view.
unattributed
In working with high school students over the last few years, I've
found that many students who have cell phones have become addicted
to sending and receiving text messages. I've watched
students sit though entire classes learning absolutely nothing
because they're so focused on keeping their cell phones hidden,
while surreptitiously glancing at the screen every thirty seconds
or so to see if they've received a new message. And when
that new message does come, they do everything they can to reply
to it without getting caught, taking their minds even further from
the work at hand.
Their lack of ability to focus on the task at hand (learning) is
very real, and it has a strong effect on the work that they do and
the grades they receive. These effects in turn affect
intrinsic elements of their beings, such as their self-esteem,
self-image, and confidence. In addition, according to a CBS
News article, “The problem here is we don’t
get the nonverbal training that we need for later in life, on a
job interview, talking with a friend, consoling friends,” said
child psychologist David Swanson. “We’re missing that along
the way.”
If I told you that you were much more likely to get into a car
accident if you were to play a video game while driving, you
probably wouldn't play the game, right? Unfortunately,
people aren't nearly as likely to give up their cell phones.
A recent article from England states: "Drivers texting
while driving, on the other hand, are 23 times more likely to be
involved in an accident." Twenty-three times is a huge
increase, yet many people aren't willing to give up their texting
in order to focus on their driving--even if they know this
statistic.
A
previous study showed that young people are now so
addicted to their mobile phones it feels like they have
lost a limb when they are without them. Some said they
felt so bereft without their iPhone or Blackberry that it
evokes similar feelings to the "phantom limb"
syndrome suffered by amputees.
Richard Alleyne
The downside here is significant. How can you live your life
fully if you're full of regret for having caused an accident that
killed an innocent person because you were texting? How can
you feel proud of yourself when you constantly bend or break the
rules at school in order to sneak out a text message or two per
class? How can you feel pride in your work when you know
that of the three hours you spent on the project, at least
forty-five minutes were spent reading and sending text messages,
or watching videos on Youtube or scrolling Facebook?
Other new addictions include addictions to information,
addictions to television, addictions to video games, and the
like. Each of these addictions have several
similarities--they involve people being passively entertained,
instead of going out and doing something they can be proud
of. They involve people learning to interact with computers
or TV screens, rather than learning how to interact with their
fellow human beings. They involve people squandering the
little time that they've been given on this planet, time that
could be used to do very positive things for themselves and other
people.
I see students constantly missing assignments
because instead of working on the task at hand,
they're scrolling Instagram or Facebook, or they're
watching TicToc or Youtube. They've become
addicted to the stimulus of seeing new posts or new
videos, or to waiting for responses from friends to
their own posts. It's very difficult for many
students to stay focused on the task at hand when
they're constantly thinking about what may or may
not be showing up on social media. And they
face constant disappointment when they don't get the
replies that they expect or hope for.
In the
last 15 years the cell phone has conquered the world. I could
make a list of 50 ways these phones have improved our lives.
But if
you’re like me and can remember what life was like before we all got
cell phones, you may wonder if all the changes are really for the
good.
Remember those days when you could go to a movie—or to church—and
not worry about being distracted by ringing phones or by the white
glow of someone texting a friend? Remember when meetings at work
weren’t interrupted by phone calls that people just had to accept?
Dave Boehi
And while I fully believe in rest and in taking time for ourselves
to relax and recharge, I know that spending hours and hours in
front of the TV or with the cell phone is losing time that we'll
never get back, and losing opportunities to grow and learn and to
help others. When we do what we do because we feel compelled
to do so--when the addiction is so strong that we really can't
think of other things to do, or allow ourselves to put the objects
of our addictions away--then our activities can easily become
destructive rather than constructive.
Our new addictions are in some ways even more insidious than some
of our older ones, mostly because we don't see the physical
manifestations of them and because they're so easy to explain away
as simply "pastimes." But if we truly do want to
get the most out of these lives that we've been given, it's
important that we be fully aware of how we spend our time and
energy. It's important that we try to remain watchful of
ourselves, and to be realistic about whether a certain activity or
object is actually contributing to our lives, or not.
Nothing
is too great or too
good to be true.Do not
believe that we
can
imagine
things better than they are.
In the long run, in the
ultimate outlook, in the eye of the Creator,
the possibilities of
existence,
the possibilities open to us,
are
beyond our imagination.
Joseph
Wood Krutch
It's Fine Today
Charles Malloch
Sure, this world is full of trouble--
I ain't said it ain't.
Lord, I've had enough and double
Reason for complaint;
Rain and storm have come to fret me,
Skies are often grey;
Thorns and brambles have beset me
On the road--but say,
Ain't it fine today?
What's the use of always weepin',
Making trouble last?
What's the use of always keepin'
Thinkin' of the past?
Each must have his tribulation--
Water with his wine;
Life, it ain't no celebration,
Trouble?--I've had mine--
But today is fine!
It's today that I am livin',
Not a month ago.
Havin'; losin'; takin'; givin';
As time wills it so.
Yesterday a cloud of sorrow
Fell across the way.
It may rain again tomorrow,
It may rain--but say,
Ain't it fine today?
I find nature so
nourishing. I love to hike, especially in the
mountains.
When I'm walking in nature, I feel in
awe of the wonder of creation.
Nature is full of
surprises, always changing, and we must change with it.
In nature, the soul is renewed and called to open
and grow.
In the wilderness, you're up against
whatever nature brings you--
the dangers as well as the
beauty.
Linda Leonard
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).
™
