Category: Uncategorized

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Carefully Taught

‘You’ve got to be carefully taught…’ goes the refrain from a song in the Broadway musical South Pacific. The man singing is the young lieutenant from the USA, who has fallen in love with a young Polynesian woman, and is beginning to hear from others that he’s making a mistake, that it’s not ‘right’ or ‘natural’ and so forth: that a Caucasian man and a Polynesian woman should not fall in love due to their different skin tones. The song addresses racism head on, and makes no bones about the fact that racism, along with all other prejudices, are taught. These are not ‘natural’ ideas floating around our subconscious, waiting to be triggered by some event that makes us suddenly and irrevocably discriminatory. When left to their own devices, small children will play with other small children, delighting in their company, and not noticing their gender, their race, their language, or any other differentiating feature. They are simply small children, playing games together, making up stories, and pretending, using what is available—sometimes only their imaginations—to imitate what they have seen, and by so doing, begin to learn social behavior. They learn how to get along, how not to get along, and so many other things. But, again, left to themselves, the prejudices that may appear later in their lives, do not have a part of this time.

The lyric above is absolutely correct: people need to be taught to hate and discriminate. Love, and the pleasure it brings is the human default. Conversely, fear is the root of hatred and prejudice, though that’s not often acknowledged by most of us. And yes, we all have fears that lead us to irrational thoughts, some more benign and some more nefarious than others, about other people, other countries, other religions, and anything that drives wedges between the potential friendship and collaboration of two entities, be they humans, states, or political parties. When that happens, a door closes, and the knowledge and learning that might have been gained by both is sacrificed. Yes, some people are scary. We may completely disagree with someone about evolution, or religious belief, but when these walls go up and we dismiss the other person and their convictions, all learning ceases, and our ‘beliefs’ become hardened, atrophied, and begin to lose their merit. While we may have been on the right track, by closing off civil discourse, we have chosen to limit what we hear, learn, and ultimately understand. And all as if there is one true belief system, eclipsing all others in its knowledge and scope. It is reassuring to think there is one true belief system, and as humans, we seek comfort and consistency. But as someone who delights in the diversity that surrounds me, in my little corner of the world, I cannot imagine a world and a universe as profoundly varied as the one we inhabit could or would exist without a multiplicity of differences, challenging us to get to know and understand what is different from us. Curiosity is one of the greatest of human virtues, and from it springs intelligence. Not necessarily ‘intelligence’ as in ‘he’s an intelligent man,’ but the sort of natural intelligence that leads a person to continually seek new knowledge and new understanding of the world around them.

Believing in something, be it love, or hope, or even more man-made creations like organized religion or government, gives us a platform from which we can face the world and what it presents. And like an actual platform, or base, on which a house or bridge is built, our platforms support us, and give us a basis of facing the challenges life gives us. This begs the question, though, of whether or not our individual platform, base, or foundation allows us to be flexible, to question ourselves, to question those around us, and to discern if we are operating from a place of love or of fear. Love will give us the world; hate and fear will take it away, perhaps forever.

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

                    —Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Dreams Become Goals with Action

Dreams are the stuff of, well, dreams.  Visions of adventure, accomplishment, education, glamour, and the like float through our collective conscience like bubbles in champagne.  And this gives us a reason to improve, to strive for something higher, be that a new car or a better life.  And it’s possible to realize those dreams when you take action to make them happen.  How many young people have returned to school to complete a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree they had abandoned, or perhaps never started?  Or the high-school dropout who looks around one day, and realizes the only way he can create a better situation is to buckle down, get that GED, or beyond, and begin to put foundations under those old dreams he now sees as goals.  Because taking action is the only way to get there.  No one can do it for you, but you can enlist the help of friends and family to help keep you on track, and remind you of your goals you sometimes forget when facing the daily challenges of life, of what needs to be done, to pick up the kids after soccer practice, keeping the house clean and in repair, and so many other necessary ‘distractions’ that can divert us from driving towards that goal on a daily basis.  The getting up early, the staying up late, using your commute to practice your songs in the car, of learning Spanish in five-minute bites of your day. It all adds up. Fifteen minutes of writing every day, no matter what, adds up to an article very quickly, and a novel over time. Taking the opportunity to speak Spanish with friends and co-workers who speak the language during a break is a great way to keep moving forward, potentially falling on your face with incorrect phrases, but learning all the same, and maybe picking up some of the idioms every language has, but are difficult to teach. And finally, of having a spouse, a friend, reminding you of what you’re reaching for, and why. 

Doesn’t it all sound great? A dream, with a plan, taking action to make it happen, even enlisting others to keep you on track, and you’re on your way to paradise. Life, however, has a way of intervening in even the best laid plans, and suddenly we find ourselves thinking, ‘if only I had just….’ And that ellipsis is filled with the excuses we create to keep ourselves stuck. And then we justify those excuses. But the fact remains that if you want to run the New York Marathon, you’ve got to put in the miles on the road. Get up early, or stay up late, if that’s more your style, run before washing the dishes, the car, or whatever other ‘necessary’ thing needs to be done. Not after. Because it doesn’t get done, and ‘after’ the car is washed and put away, you’re probably not thinking about lacing up your shoes and hitting the pavement. Making ‘deals’ with ourselves might be one of our worst ways to accomplish things. Having a team, or a tribe of people who support you, and best of all, keep you accountable is probably the best. That’s one of the reasons checking in with a sponsor is so effective in 12-step programs dealing with addiction. If you know you have to check in with someone, to whom you’ve decided to be accountable, it’s a little easier to say no to the distractions; a convenient ‘excuse’ if you will, to allow you to pursue a better alternative to not chasing your goal. After years, decades really, a couple decided to lose weight using a tried-and-true method, by doing it together, and checking in with each other constantly. It didn’t happen overnight, and there were some slips, but in less than a year, both had shed the unwanted weight, and had created a new bond by keeping each other on track to better health. The point is that however we do it, we need to create ‘community’ for ourselves: our spouses, girlfriends/boyfriends, co-workers, online groups will help us to keep the momentum, and help us get closer to our goals. No matter how strong our personal willpower, we can justify anything as humans, good and bad, and at some point, ‘willpower’ crumbles and we’re left with excuses.

So, find your way of being accountable, to someone else, whoever that might be, because without action and forward movement, goals will remain dreams. They might be pretty dreams, occasionally tempting us to make them into reality, but it’s what we do that makes a dream a goal.

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Speed Bumps

Photo: Clker-Free-Vector-Images/Pixabay

Everyone’s dealt with them in traffic: the speed bump.  Near intersections, school crossings, hospitals, etc. And we drive over them and go on our way. But what about those speed bumps life throws at us?  Unexpectedly? Or maybe we weren’t paying attention and all-of-a-sudden we feel that jarring feeling, and think, what was that? Being sick is one of those speed bumps for me. As a fairly healthy person in good shape, being in bed, sleeping 16 hours a day, with breaks to take whatever is alleviating the symptoms I’m facing, is not my favorite way to go through a day. There’s no guilt, per se, as it happens to everyone, but I’m just annoyed, because, like all exceptional people—and aren’t we all?—THIS doesn’t happen to ME!!! So there’s annoyance, and then acceptance, and then the turning into a four-year-old again when people ask how you’re doing. And all adults do this. I do. You do. Even if we’re reluctant to admit it.  But that’s not all bad, though.  Embracing the child in you allows you to sleep peacefully, knowing you’re being watched over—yes, even when alone—and lets you give yourself permission to have hot chocolate in the middle of the day, with whipped cream(!), and then go back to sleep to rest until whatever ails you decides it’s had enough, and departs. And then it’s back to work, to school, to life, and to pick up the pieces we put down during our time out.

But…what if those speed bumps are more continuous? A bad road perhaps? The continuous onslaught of a bad job, or relationship, or situation that just doesn’t go away, like a cold or other temporary discomfort, and we are forced to deal with it day in and day out? Not something hot chocolate, even with whipped cream, can make us see in a different light. How do we deal with those? Initially, we can search for a scapegoat, that harbinger of doom bringing this upon us, causing all this trouble for us, and seeking to get rid of its presence. Scapegoats, of course, are not the cause of whatever ails us, but the wished-for ‘reason’ for our situation.  Looking deeper into the cause of our discomfort sometimes brings us way too close to home: a look at ourselves. Of our habits. Of our desires. Of the things that keep us doing the same things every day, yet expecting different results. No, it’s not a jarring ‘speed-bump’ bounce and on the way, but more a wake-up call to change things on a permanent level. To look deeper and ask why we are doing something in a particular way, at a particular time, when we can see and feel it’s not serving us. Being comfortable with where we are is a human trait, and we are sometimes more ‘comfortable’ being ‘uncomfortable’ with a known habit, trait, or behavior, than we are in trying to change something for the better. EVEN WHEN WE KNOW THAT CHANGE IS THE BETTER WAY. This can be so hard to face. When we face it at all. But it is the only way out of the daily ‘insanity’ that accepting something we know to be harmful presents. It’s why we call a friend and say, ‘I need help with this, because I can’t always see it.’ Or why we create a way of changing things, in small ways perhaps, that allow us to begin to change our behavior to avoid these incessant ‘speed bumps.’

It can be writing every day. My favorite. Or planning a garden. Or simply deciding what the future can be is far more enticing than what is, and then taking those baby steps, each minute, each day, to beginning to LIVE each day differently than before.

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The Power of Want

Photo: Toby_Parsons

As humans, we all need food, clothing, and shelter. These are the basic things that keep us from starving, protects our bodies from injury, and keeps us safe from weather or predators of all sorts. As a baseline for moving through life, the list is pretty simple. We all, however, have wants as well. While some of our wants might coincide with our list of basics, they tend to be larger, grander, or otherwise embellished in some way we find attractive. There are designer clothes, prestigious careers, sports cars, expensive food and restaurants; the list goes on. What makes us long for things other than the simple basics we need? The want, or desire to stand out, to differentiate ourselves, to better ourselves, to reward ourselves, in different ways, from our fellow humans. 

Desire to improve our skill set often derives wanting to be better at something, be it cooking or baseball. We may have seen or read of ways to improve those skills, and as they are things we like to do, and that make us happy doing them, we decide to become better by practicing more, working with an expert to help us refine our skills, and putting in the work to improve. And be they personal or professional skills that we are developing, they will support our efforts to be more skillful, effective people, and take away stress from these activities that we now do well. This, in turn, makes us calmer, more confident people in these and other areas.

When our wants delve into things that are out of reach or detrimental to us, it is often based in fear, selfishness, and pride. Fear of not being the best, the champion, is sometimes seen as failure by people. Losing in the seventh game of the World Series. Accepting the runner-up Wimbledon trophy. These both are incredible achievements by these athletes, but some see only failure, rather than the fact that if they got this far, it’s possible to go further in the future. A car will get us from point A to point B. Wanting a sleek sports car to do this is not a bad thing. Deciding, however, to buy one that is really out of our price range—because it’s nearly always possible to finance it—for how we think it will make us feel, or how we think people will now see us, is not a great idea. Our greatest tool in this situation, if only we are open enough to recognize it, is gratitude. This is when we have to step back, truly see and acknowledge our efforts, what we have, and see them for what they truly are in our lives. The recognition and affirmation of the gratitude for the chance to try, is the key to continuing to be true champions, and acknowledging that ‘failing to succeed’ is a necessary part of learning how to go further.

Want is an odd thing for the human race. At once both helpful and harmful, our perspective is vital to seeing the lessons we might learn, the paths we ought not to take. Gratitude can remind us that what we already have is good, and that ‘wants’ might point us in a new direction we had not considered.

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Action and Momentum

Taking action to create something new, be it a new sport, a new job, or a painting, is one of the biggest steps we can take as human beings. We all know people who are incessantly starting something new, learning new skills, making new friends, seeking new horizons, and there is something enviable about them in many ways. They have moved beyond the ‘wouldn’t it be nice…’ stage of dreaming of a better way to live by putting their dreams in action. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes not. And they don’t seem to care either way. For many of us, trying something new, finding it’s not something we particularly like, and then abandoning it, is seen as failure, but that’s not true. As Thomas Edison said, ‘I have not failed. I have successfully discovered twelve hundred ideas that don’t work.’ By flipping the ‘failure’ paradigm this way, the work put into discovery—even unsuccessfully—is work that will guide us to a better way of doing something.

Taking steps to write a song, or a story, or perhaps to paint a picture, we enlist our unconscious mind, and suddenly we begin to think of new and different ways to create. Some work. Many do not. But all of them are teaching us discernment—what to leave in and what to take out—and we are able to make progress and take those lessons into the next idea that crosses our mind. The momentum we created pulls us along and the work itself becomes more exciting each time we come back to it. We may not finish this particular painting or story at the time, but what we have learned from its creation will go with us into the next project, and help inform our decisions in bringing something else to life. Even if we are only baking pre-prepared slice-off cookies, the very act of creating something is invigorating, and triggers so many positive things within us. Not taking any kind of action to fulfill a dream, or even just to bake cookies, leaves us feeling flat, as if we are procrastinating and letting life pass us by, rather than taking life’s hand and agreeing to dance, even if, especially if, we don’t know the dance steps. It’s more exhilarating to feel the rush of wind as your boat speeds down the river than it is to remain sitting on the dock. There is a time and a place for contemplation, perhaps while sitting on the dock, and there is a time to move, to act. We need both in our lives, each activity aiding the other: those hours of thought and reflection help us define what we want to do, before we begin to move toward it. It is the silence and contemplation that gives birth to the first step of a journey, the first few words of a story, or the opening bars of a song, that once begun, eventually take lives of their own, and we become passengers of our creation that is now fully-fledged and will show us the next steps to take in our quest.

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A House Divided

Photo: TheVirtualDenise/Pixabay

From the beginning of time, community, in its various forms, has been the hub around which our lives revolve. That may mean the Church, the Grange, school, work, and our neighborhood. It may also be emotional, like our favorite football or baseball team, creating a community of like-minded fans.  Social Media has also created new communities, allowing us to stay in contact with friends or family we don’t see often, or perhaps haven’t seen in years. As a society, we tend to be busy, and a quick text or post is the best we can do to reach out to someone. 

Unlike in-person meetings, something that has diminished tremendously in light of the pandemic we face, social media sometimes creates personal echo chambers, where everything we receive, or read, aligns completely with our thought process, and with the things we like. Things, people, opinions, and thoughts we don’t like, have been virtually eliminated. If we so desire, we can also ‘block’ people and organizations from our pages, to further eradicate things that might upset us, or cause us stress. In all, we can be left with our own little ‘perfect’ planet where we agree with everyone and everything there, and not be angry that we were contradicted or proved wrong. It can be a lonely place.

Humans are social beings, which is why we seek groups in which we can happily live. The interaction, even if we disagree, is the point of this, and we learn from each other in this way. Are there disagreements? Absolutely! Recently, however, as our worlds have contracted due to the pandemic, as well as the necessity of not gathering as we used to do, the reliance on phones, computers, and social media has made our world less hospitable, and our culture has been edging toward a more antagonistic way of communicating. We choose a side of a particular argument, and then defend it mightily, as we want, need, to win. Friendship, camaraderie, justice, fair treatment, wholeness, and goodness are thrown to the wayside as we navigate our way to winning the argument. On social media, perhaps because of its anonymity, people say sometimes quite vile things to others, in their attempt to crush them and their way of thinking, which further divides them. And of course, most people walk away from these situations thinking they have ‘won,’ or leave feeling attacked and sad.

What do we take away from these situations? Are they helpful? While we are all capable of bringing light into such situations, that is difficult to remember sometimes. Especially now, when there is such fear running through much of this discourse, causing us to ‘protect’ ourselves and our families from these threats—real or perceived—that we go immediately into defense mode. It seems, though, that this begs the questions, ‘Why am I responding to this?’ and ‘Is my response necessary?’

While there are many ways to answer the first question, it is the second that is far more important. If I decide to respond to a train of thought, will my response help others see the salient points, or will it create a firestorm of disagreement? Realizing, of course, that ‘salient points’ can be a matter of opinion in this case, and may create new issues, is your response necessary at all? Or will letting the ‘argument’ simply lie, neither contested nor defended, the better way to address this? Sometimes, letting something go is better for all involved.

Letting go of an argument, a situation, a person, is sometimes the high road, and allows us to embrace another community value: taking the action that is most beneficial for everyone. This does, of course, necessitate letting go once more; this time of our ego. We don’t have to win everything, be number one, or be the leader of our pack. We want, and need others in our lives, and taking action to ensure that we are looking out for one another, plants the seeds of compassion in all concerned. While it feels good to win, it feels better to create good in the world, and to reap the benefits with our fellow humans.

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We Can’t Be Angry and Grateful at the Same Time…

Life moves at the speed of light, it seems sometimes, and keeping up can be difficult at times. As humans, we are constantly expressing our wants and needs to others, and seeking ways to fulfill our wishes. But, also because we are humans, sometimes understanding another’s reasoning behind things can be tricky, at best. We all express ourselves in different ways, and way too many times, the true meaning gets lost, or is interpreted differently than the speaker intended it to be understood. And we get frustrated, or angry, or both. All of a sudden, the path in front of us is not clear, and that can produce a fear response. In a second, a question-and-answer moment has turned into an argument, with accusations, with plenty of ‘You Should…’ as we fight to be understood. All of a sudden, two people have divided into two camps, determined to ‘win’ and make themselves understood, in order to claim a hollow ‘victory’ for themselves. And what has been accomplished? Absolutely nothing. Nothing, unless you count the seething anger that lingers after such moments, which is not how things began. 

Where to now? How do we calm down and assume a kinder disposition and continue with our day? Deep breaths, of course. A mental ‘Calm down!’ Telling ourselves it’s okay, and so forth. And the deep breaths do help, as these trigger our physical response to being newly oxygenated, and we do physically calm down. The other phrases we tell ourselves can help, too, but largely they help us move on from the event, which is also helpful. The thing I have found the most helpful, however, is an exercise I refer to as ‘Count your Blessings.’ When a situation has gone out of control, and anger and fear are building within us, I try to reach a state where I begin to say, ‘I am grateful for….’ My husband, my family, my health, my fill-in-the-blank of things I am grateful are a part of my life. Starting with the obvious ones, like family, or your relationships, can be a big help in continuing the list, and really thinking about what you are grateful for having in your life, and letting that phrase really sink in and affect you. Somewhat quickly, the deep breaths you may have taken to help you calm yourself have turned into an easy breathing pattern, as the mental stress begins to dissipate as you begin to focus on the things in your life that bring you true happiness. Continuing to list the things for which you’re grateful also lets your subconscious take over, and things begin to be listed that maybe you had forgotten about, or didn’t remember in the heat of the moment that brought you here. That great hike in Oregon from last summer’s vacation, and the glorious sunset that closed out the day. Your child’s homemade Christmas ornaments that you both had such fun making. And all of a sudden, it becomes more difficult to remember why you were angry, and makes it easier to move through the rest of your day. 

Gratitude simply doesn’t permit fear and anger to be a part of the mix. Bringing gratitude into situations that upset us allows us to let go of those emotions and bring ourselves back into feeling love. From this point, we are capable of doing so much, and we bring ourselves and the love now governing us, to whatever we do, and to the people we see.

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Hope Springs Eternal

The old proverb, ‘Hope springs eternal in the Human Breast,’ has been with us for so long, because it is human nature to find new ways to be optimistic. Especially when things seem dark and bleak in our lives. We may have been ill for a longer time than we expected, or a loved one has lost a job, or we watch out child go through a very difficult period. It is during these frustrating times that we search for other ways to see and understand what is happening. A good friend refers to these trials as ‘a little inconvenience’ in her life, and treats them as such. It is also during these times that we can easily assume the mantle of ‘victim’ and collapse into a sea of misery and blame, pulling down others in our despair, largely because, to use another old proverb, ‘misery loves company.’

The world has countless stories of suffering, difficulties, and tragedies. The stories themselves are lessons in ‘what went wrong’ in a particular case, but the ones that really resonate with us are of triumph in the face of disaster.  The stories of Anne Frank and her family hiding from the Nazi’s during World War II, or Olympian Louis Zamperini captured and tortured in the Pacific by the Japanese. Anne Frank’s story did not end with a triumph, but the story resonates still due to the hope kept by she and her family that they would ultimately be able to escape the horrors of the concentration camps that interred so many other in Europe. Zamperini was,indeed, finally liberated, coming home to the USA very broken and disillusioned. It was his journey from that low point, to becoming an inspiration and a role model that keeps us fascinated by his transformation. And at the base of both of these stories is hope, that tiny thing that makes troubling times a little less difficult, simply by creating a story that ends well, if only in your mind, while you’re enduring these trials.

Hope takes so many forms it would be impossible to try and list them with anything resembling a final list. Hope can be the plan of ‘if I just keep doing my best, working to improve, things will get better.’ Hope can also mean ‘we’ve done everything we can think of to help this, and just need to keep going until it gets better.’ Hope can also go into wishing or praying for some new inspiration to manifest to improve things. Or of a ‘guardian angel’ to help us out. These last two may sound like fantasy, but sometimes putting the thoughts out there into the Universe can make a difference: something or someone comes along and helps us see our plight in a different way that changes how we think about it. Of the Food Bank—supplying children with weekend backpacks of food to help them and their families with food insecurity—finding themselves with empty cupboards on Friday morning, only to have a high school senior deliver them 2,000 pounds of food on Friday afternoon: his Senior Project dedicated to helping Food Insecurity in his area.

Hope invites wishes, and prayers, and thoughts of unexpected help to get us through tough times. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. It is then that we begin to realize what we are capable of enduring, and that we will get through our troubles if we keep our heads up, looking upward and outward, and just keep going.

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Leaping in Baby Steps

Many times, we tend to overlook small, seemingly insignificant things that pass our way. Subtle gestures of friends and strangers that can communicate so much, if only we were aware of them. Tiny little flowers hiding in the shadow of a larger plant. Delicate grace-notes in a piano concerto. Great ideas coming from the shy person. So many of us barrel headlong through life with a set agenda, preconceived ideas, and a big goal in mind, that these things get lost and we move on without them, having no idea of what we may have missed. And does it matter? Perhaps not in the big picture. After all, we have work to be done, people to take care of, and responsibilities to fulfill. So, why do we even need to pay attention to these things? The answer, if such a term can even be used, is that sometimes the smallest step in the right direction, the unexpected kind words, the unsolicited help with a rough situation, can end up being one of the most significant actions that help us to see our way through, and can affect the rest of our life in ways we never expected.

In trying to control the things I can control in my life, and letting the rest go, there is, of course, confusion about what is what and which is which. Some things I think I am able to handle, I find are out of my control, and I find others, which seemed nearly insurmountable, to be much easier to navigate. Case in point: I tend of have ‘conversations’ and ‘arguments’ with myself, reliving old confrontations, or preparing for situations I may need to face sooner than later. Of course, rehashing talks that have past adds nothing to them or to my knowledge of how I might have better dealt with that occasion. Reaching into the future of yet-to-be spoken words can, indeed, allow us to see what counterpoints we may face and then be ready to deal with that when and if it comes up. In both cases, however, I find myself stressed-out, and angry—meaning fearful—about something I cannot control. Recently, I decided to let go of these things, and it has not been easy. The old conversation starts in my mind, and I find myself right there again, before realizing what I’m doing, and reminding myself, ‘Let it go.’ And I may need to remind myself again, before telling myself to breathe deeply several times and let go. At first, this seemed a ridiculous exercise, and I contemplated abandoning it. It, and the affect it was having seemed insignificant and not worth the effort. I did, however, decide it needed to be done, however my ego was feeling about the so-called results I experience. So I kept going. And the next situation that popped up made me feel silly. As did the one after that. To my surprise, however, as I continued to breathe deeply, telling myself to let go, and so on, I reached a point, months after I began this, when I realized I was just letting it go, and not letting the situation affect me personally or how I felt. The ego in the situation had vanished, and I realized that so many of these things I faced were not, indeed, about me, and there was no reason I needed to let them bother me. The situations, at work or elsewhere, were simply bumps in the road, to be navigated as best I could at the moment, and then forgotten.

Baby Steps. We take them as children learning to walk because we are developing and growing and our bodies are teaching us how to do this, slowly and carefully, because we are not physically ready to handle actually walking without this. The very small steps we are capable of taking are precisely what helps us to grow stronger and stronger, until we begin to walk on our own. Somehow, though, as adults we don’t often give ourselves the benefit of this subtle way of learning, thinking we need to do it all and know it all without ever taking the time to learn to fall, to learn to be helped by others, and to revel in the baby steps themselves. And that’s okay, too. But it’s also okay to spot the baby rabbit in the shadows, to hear a child singing joyfully to themselves, and to let ourselves be fully human…faults and all, and to be okay with that.

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Lost in the Wonder

When was the last time you got completely lost in an activity? Probably not at work, even if you love what you do. And probably not in checking off those boxes on your ‘to-do’ list, either. ‘Lost’ as in the kind of focus you see in small children building a sandcastle on the beach, or the sort of concentration you see on the faces of athletes giving their all to accomplish their goal. Many times, life today allows us to pay attention to the things that bring immediate rewards, such as our livelihood, bringing us the paycheck that fuels our lives, or perhaps attention we give to a report at work that moves our business forward. Each of those have their ‘rewards’ in one form or another, but do our lives have room for those things that may not make money for us, but provides us the joy of creativity. In my case, time spent at the piano, practicing scales, and then the pieces I’m working on right now, gives me that opportunity to get totally lost in the activity of playing the piano, sometimes better, sometimes worse, depending on when I last practiced, but allows me to get up from the instrument, feeling that ‘flow’ state of creative energy. Even if I’ve practiced to the point that I am quite mentally tired—and with tired fingers, as well—I leave the keyboard with a euphoria that goes with me into the rest of my life, and lasts for quite a while.

Whatever it is that gives each of us that state of mind is so vitally important, even if, and maybe particularly if it doesn’t make us a nickel. Times spent focused on something we love to do, be it music, or sports, or sewing, or building things, is time spent refreshing our minds, taking us away from the spectre of mortgages, bills, deadlines, and so forth, and simply allows us to play, if you will, taking us into another world, another plane of existence, where only the focus on the activity itself counts for anything. Why? Because it gives us license to mentally step away from whatever responsibilities that demand our attention, and allows us to give ourselves the attention we were able to give ourselves when we were much younger. ‘Living,’ or getting lost in that space frees our mind, and allows so many things and ideas to enter our heads, sometimes sparking other creative ideas, and sometimes things we think about momentarily and then later forget. And either way, it doesn’t matter. Because this time is how we keep ourselves fresh and vital, and not preoccupied with matter that will only cause us stress. There is always time in our lives for the responsibilities we have taken on, as well as thought for what ‘needs’ to be done in our lives. ‘Getting lost’ is a complement to that, and allows us the down time we all desperately need in order to navigate those more stressful pieces of our lives, because we have allowed ourselves to do something that gives us a sense of meaning the minute we finish doing it. Bringing this balance into our lives also allows us to be more in the present moment as we move through what life presents to us at any given moment, and allows us to see that we can have that wonderful, yet imperfect life that too few manage to create.