Tag: understanding

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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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Listening for Compassion

Listening is often difficult. From the time we are children, hearing our parents telling us to listen to what they are saying, to sitting in classrooms, knowing we should be listening, but are not, to more dire situations where we are hanging onto every word because not listening at that moment could make the situation worse, we have trouble listening to others. And, we get annoyed when we realize others are not listening to us. The relationship of speaker and listener certainly affects our efforts at understanding what is being said: think of a boss speaking to one of her employees about the work at hand, a situation where the best course of action is to listen carefully and then ask questions about things we might not understand. Still, we all want to be heard and quite often, we are formulating our response to what we believe is being said before the other person is finished speaking. One person finishes, and the questions begin. ‘Can you clarify…?’ ‘I’m not sure I understand the purpose of that step…?’ ‘How does this relate to…?’ ‘Shouldn’t we call in accounting (etc.) for this…?’ The original speaker, somewhat puzzled, then replies, ‘I addressed that point when I said….’ The back-and-forth begins, and at some point a consensus is reached when both parties feel that they were both heard and understood.

How many of us experience this situation daily, and on multiple occasions? We are not trying to be difficult, but trying to understand what is being asked, and how we might help the person speaking. Each of us, however, has their own life, their own agenda, family, responsibilities, ambitions, hopes and prayers that we we never really forget about, even in a situation where our full attention is required for other things. Remembering that we have two ears and one mouth, and that the proportion of hearing to talking should probably follow the same ratio, is something we rarely remember in the heat of discussion. When we are engaged, we get excited about new challenges—whether at work or play—and our minds go into overdrive, thinking of the possibilities and figuring out how things will work with the new idea. This enthusiasm is fantastic! Now how to put things into action? Living in a world where we are always reachable, having grown accustomed to the ever-faster pace of life, though, we have lost some of the ability to slow down, reach a still point, and really think of how we will address the new challenge. Slowing down in order to more deeply listen opens our minds further, to see directions, solutions, and outcomes we might have missed in our readiness to begin a new activity. Historically, and from multiple disciplines and philosophies, the world’s greatest teachers, sages, and leaders all sought to withdraw, to slow down, to deeply think about what they were facing. Some faced political ruin, some imprisonment, while others faced certain death or exile. 

We rarely face this sort of dire outcome in our daily lives, but how to create the time and space to let ourselves really breathe, calm our minds, and make decisions on how to go forth? The answer: Go within. In freeing your mind, and allowing free-associations to come to you, suddenly problems and challenges are less daunting, and we are able to begin to see how, step-by-step, we can face what is confronting us. This can be done in many ways, but a few things come to mind when addressing this. First, journaling: putting our thoughts, fears, hopes, and so forth on paper with a pen lets us see physically what is occupying our thoughts, and we can then begin to create steps that might help solve these issues. Second, many people list things for which they are grateful to have in their lives: wife/husband, children, financial security, a good job, good friends, and so on. The beauty of this is that it can be done with a pen and paper, or simply sitting in a chair, vocally or mentally listing things for which they are grateful. A bonus of doing this, is that it is actually impossible to be grateful and angry or fearful at the same time. Others meditate to slow their lives, while others run long distances, as the physical action is what they need to calm and open their mind. Whatever you choose, if one of these, or something else entirely, and whether this activity begins or ends your day, or possibly refocuses you in the middle of the maelstrom, matters not. Giving yourself, as well as others around you, the time, space, and the consideration needed to center your mind, slow down, and begin to more deeply listen for answers that will ultimately help us to be more compassionate is just the beginning.