Tag Archives: Gratitude

Dear Future Me: a letter to myself 25 years from now

DSC_0550“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” –C.S. Lewis

Hello friend,

Twenty-five years from now—if I am blessed to be here that long—I will be 68 years old. I can scarcely begin to imagine how much our world will have changed by then. What will our energy sources be? Will cars fly? Will polar bears be extinct? There are way too many questions to consider; I get dizzy just thinking about it. Twenty-five years ago, I had never even written in a journal; twenty-five years from now, I will probably have filled up 100 or more. In any case, I am guessing that the world I will be chronicling when I’m 68 will be vastly different than the one I write about these days.

But what about the chronicler? ME. How different will I be as I navigate that different world? Hmmm….that is a stumper. Theoretically, the bulk of the upheaval and “finding yourself” parts of life happen in your early adulthood: 20s, maybe some 30s. I’m 43 right now. Does that mean I am supposed to be in the settled, stagnant part, and that nothing very crazy happens after this? Just a bunch of “getting old”? I am not so sure about that theory, because it seems like I have a LOT left to do!

Whatever is ahead, and because I am basically a loner (and don’t really foresee that changing much), I thought that my 68-year-old self might appreciate a note from an old friend. ME, the 43-year-old version. So, here goes….

Dear Future Me,

I am glad you made it this far! As you well know, for much of your life, I was quite sure you would not. I had you pegged for the guy who dies young, leaving a lot of “What might have been…” thoughts behind. But here you are, alive and well. That is something to appreciate.

Look at your family! What truly extraordinary people you have been blessed to call your tribe. You completely lucked out with that wife of yours. She has done so much good in the world. I still don’t know how she puts up with you, but I am glad that she does. You better be, too! And your children have grown into such unique and authentic adults, giving their gifts to the world in ways that only they can. I know you believe that we all come to Earth with our personalities and our callings mostly determined, and that you take no credit for their successes and the class with which they handle them. However, I wish you would remind yourself once in a while that you played your part well, too, giving them the love, support, and guidance that allowed them to authentically take their leaps, knowing that you had already done what you could to soften the inevitable falls. If you have done one thing right on this journey, it is that. Knowing how hard on yourself you are about making enough of an impact during your short time on this planet, I hope you at least take some comfort in that contribution. You’ve been a good Dad. And yeah, they really are amazing.

Speaking of your impact and how you have tried to make it, I can sum it up this way: I am sorry, and I am proud of you. Like you, I really wish you would have been able to reach more people with your message and helped them to live their best and happiest lives. I am sorry for that, as I know how it pains you, and I know they would have benefited from hearing you. I hope you will continue your efforts for all the days that you live. The task is worthy of your time and effort. On the flipside of my sympathy, I truly am proud of your mission and how you have gone about living your purpose. You have, if nothing else, stayed on task these last 25 years. Just this morning, I was writing graduation cards to your niece and nephew, and my message to them was this: “If I have one piece of advice for you, it is to understand who you are and what makes your heart sing. Then just be unapologetically you, forever and always.” I am glad that, on the whole, you have stuck to your own advice. Of course, I know you have made some compromises to keep the bills paid and such, but in all these 25 years, you have never lost sight of your passion and your purpose. Remember that Life Purpose exercise you did way back when, when you decided that at your core, you were a catalyst for self-awareness and authenticity? If that is so, then you have done okay in living that purpose. I know that you wished for a bigger audience on a broader platform, but you haven’t stopped being yourself and delivering your message. And though I know your journey with this is not over and that you will keep fighting the good fight, even if you never sell another book or give another speech, I hope you will find some peace in having made the attempt. You have lived with the idea that “This is not a dress rehearsal,” and I hope you can see that as its own version of Success. So, as you hit the home stretch of the last 25 (or so) years of your journey with your message, I hope you can somehow balance the seemingly conflicting ideas of NEVER SETTLING for the amount of progress you have made and still APPRECIATING the difference you have made in people’s lives.

 I can safely say that the part of my vision of you at 68 that makes me feel the best—most relieved, frankly—is that you have remembered to be, above all else, grateful for the countless gifts that you have been blessed with. Your thoughts are centered around a theme of Gratitude, and that has undoubtedly been the thing that has kept you consistently happy for all of these years, no matter how the world has turned. In whatever years you have left, as perhaps some of your physical and mental gifts may leave you, it is my great hope you never lose that precious Gratitude.

 It surely has been a magnificent ride! Keep on marching your path to the beat of that drum that only your ears can hear. And remember to always reflect the Truth that you have known all along: Life is beautiful.  

Always,

43-Year-Old William

P.S. I almost forgot. It’s time to forgive yourself for getting old (and looking old). It’s part of the deal, so deal with it!

How about you? What would you like to say to Future You? Open up your journal and lay the groundwork for a very important letter. I think it would be easier to write a letter to Past You—maybe we will do that next week—because you know exactly what that life was. It seems the hardest part of this task is to come up with a reasonably clear feeling and visualization of what your life and worldview will be in 25 years. But I urge you: do that work! It is important. Making this visualization requires a blend of honesty and hopefulness about how you will navigate the next quarter-century: mentally, physically, spiritually. The habits of mind and body that you carry into that distant future day dictate the letter you are about to compose, so consider them fully. What is central in your life today—for example, your purpose, dreams, family—that you are certain will still have importance 25 years from now? How old will you be in 25 years? Where will you be in your career cycle then? How about your family cycle?   What will Future You want/need to hear from Present You? Encouragement? Consolation? Empathy? Congratulations? Instructions? Thanks? A kick in the butt? A reminder of what she has believed in and what her purpose was? A reminder of her value and who loves her? Permission to die? It could be any or all of the above, and so much more. I know I encourage you every time to write it down, but sometimes I mean it more than others. This exercise was very helpful for me. Emotional, too. It taught me some things I need to remember today and tomorrow, not just when I am 68. So, answer the questions above, of course, but then take that final, crucial step: WRITE THE LETTER! I won’t even ask you to leave me a reply this week (though I always appreciate it more than you can imagine). Instead, leave yourself one, and start it like this: “Dear Future Me…..”

Live your whole life,

William

P.S. If this letter and this exercise were good for you, I hope you will share them with your friends and family. It is about improving the quality of our lives, and to my mind, that should be a universal hope. Blessed be.

Thanksgiving & Responsibility: Refugees & the Home of the Brave, Part 2

DSC_0061 2“The price of greatness is responsibility.” –Winston Churchill

Hello friend,

Thanksgiving Week is always–for me, and probably you, too–a time of reflection about all of life’s many wonderful blessings. Seeing everybody’s gratitude posts on Facebook and getting texts from family members, it always puts me in the mindset of counting my blessings. This year was no different. Although I think of myself as habitually grateful—reminding myself every day in my journal of how blessed I am—Thanksgiving Day found me thinking in specifics about the things that make this life so magnificent.

Halfway through that day’s journal entry, I wrote to myself: “I am truly grateful for this wonderful life of mine. There is Love all around me and in my heart. I cannot believe how lucky I am to share this little world with Karla, India, and Isaiah. We have the best time together, and it makes me shudder to even begin to imagine a world without them. They are the best. And of course, my big Rutten family is all I could ask for in that department. I am also so, so grateful that I woke up a couple of years ago to the fire inside me and the need to pursue my passion and share my voice with the world. I am every day driven by that, and happily so. It is an enormous challenge, but that challenge represents the blessing of knowing who I am and what I have to give. It’s a beautiful responsibility. I’ll take it! It is plain to me in this moment that I am blessed in every way. It is a Happy Thanksgiving, indeed! Life is beautiful.”

It’s a pretty typical gratitude check for my journal, the kind of sentiment that has filled up many lines of many pages of many journals in the last twenty years of writing. The part that my heart keeps going back to this Thanksgiving week, though—the word that feels exceedingly relevant in light of recent world events—is “responsibility.” Yes, with all of the focus everyone is putting on being thankful, my mind cannot help but carry gratitude to its next logical step. For me, Gratitude’s child is Responsibility.

I have always been a big believer in the principle, “With great gifts come great responsibilities,” a.k.a. “To whom much is given, much is expected.” In my mind, if you are lucky enough to have hit the lottery in one form or another—your intelligence, your physical abilities, your wealth, your power—then you have an obligation to do the best you can with your special gift. Honor what is special about you by using it to its fullest, especially in raising up others who were not given your gift. And don’t act like you are so much better than everyone else just because you won the lottery. You got lucky. Be grateful for that, not arrogant. That’s how I see it.

Lately, my beloved America has been embroiled in the drama of the Syrian refugee crisis. Even though there is, theoretically, space enough and resources enough for a few more in this great land, we ardently demand that our borders be closed and our resources saved just for us. Mine, not yours! It is greedy and small of us. But mostly, it just feels like our response is a blatant display of ingratitude.

We have struck the geographic lottery by being born in America, where we have tons of freedoms, clean water, never wars on our soil, and relative economic prosperity. And very few of us have personally done anything to earn this stuff. We got lucky by being born here. We have so much, and we like to think of ourselves as the world’s leader (e.g. we have taken it upon ourselves to explore space on behalf of all humankind, and it is always a “U.S.-led coalition” that goes after the bad guys). And yet, when a situation like the current refugee crisis arises, we avert our eyes and sit on our hands, pretending this is not EXACTLY the time that the world needs a real leader. The world needs a beacon of light right now, and instead, we are playing small. I am embarrassed by that.

The other angle of this situation with American attitudes toward the refugees that increasingly bothers and embarrasses me is the religious hypocrisy slant. Despite liking the idea of being a melting pot, the majority of people seem to cling desperately to the idea that we are a “Christian nation.” Though I am not a Christian, I have been one, I’ve read the Bible from start to finish, and I think very highly of the man called Jesus of Nazareth. From what I know of him and his principles, my guess is that he would be first in line to welcome the refugees and help them to re-establish themselves and become prosperous and contributing members of our community.

Jesus was, if nothing else, a teacher of love, tolerance, and humility. And yet, here we are as a nation of his followers, and the dominant features of our attitudes in this situation are fear, intolerance, and hubris. I shake my head as I think how sadly appropriate the meme on my friend’s Facebook page was this week showing Kermit the Frog sipping tea, with the caption reading, “All of the Bible Belt states refusing refugees put on a Christmas play every year about a Middle-Eastern family seeking shelter, fleeing persecution…but that’s none of my business.”

It is easy to have principles when everything is going your way. It is convenient to be righteous when nothing is being asked of you. Well, guess what? Something is being asked of us now. We are being asked to share. Share our compassion. Share our resources. Share our country.

For most of us, the reason we are Americans is that our ancestors came here seeking a better life, a life with greater opportunity and less persecution. Others of us are here because our ancestors were brought here against their will and sold into slavery. Whatever the case, we are all here now, and we are pretty darn lucky to be here. We are blessed in so many ways that others are not. We have good reason to celebrate Thanksgiving. Collectively, our cup is full.

The question we have to ask ourselves—individually and collectively—is this: How are we going to express that gratitude? Not just, “How are we going to be grateful?” but rather, “How are we going to act grateful?” What will we do? How can we make ‘gratitude’ a verb? Will we take up the responsibility that our many blessings call for? Will we take Jesus’ example seriously? Will we lead? Or will we play small? Will we hide behind fear and bigotry, seeking only to protect what we are sure is “ours” alone? We have to look ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves a loaded question.

Basically, if we really are grateful for all we have and all that comes with being an American, then we have a responsibility to help. To open our grateful hearts and share. I want to think that we are big enough to rise to that. I want to. But are we? Our day of reckoning is here. Let us reveal ourselves. I am ready to stand with my arms open.

How about you? What kind of responsibility are you feeling this week? Open up your journal and explore your relationship with gratitude and responsibility. What are you most grateful for this year? How grateful are you to live in this country? What about being an American is so special and makes us so lucky? Is it mostly about the principles that the country was founded upon? Or is it the economic prosperity and opportunities? How about the relative safety and security? If you are reading this letter, you are probably one of the more prosperous people in the world. How much of that is your own doing? Do you agree with me that much of what we have is dumb luck, that we could just as well have been born in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or Syria? If this is true, then how greedy are we justified in being with “our” space and “our” resources? Where would you be now if your ancestors were shut out of America the way so many of us are demanding that we shut out the refugees now? If we are as blessed as I believe we are, don’t we have a responsibility to help these people who are literally without a country? If not us, who do you think should help them? When you turn your back on someone in need–someone whom you have the resources to help–how does that make you feel? Powerful? Or small? It makes me feel small. Are you a Christian? What do you think Jesus’ stand on helping the refugees would be? Do you think it would matter to him what their religion is? What can you do to step up today, to honor your privileges? Leave me a reply and let me know: Do our many blessings come with greater responsibilities?

Happy Thanksgiving,

William

P.S. I thank you for reading my letter. If you are grateful for it, please share it with friends.

Taking a Moment to Say “Thanks!” Instead of “Please???”

IMG_2404“We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.” –Neal A. Maxwell

Hello friend,

“DEAR GOD, I WANNA TAKE A MINUTE, NOT TO ASK FOR ANYTHING FROM YOU, BUT SIMPLY TO SAY THANK YOU FOR ALL I HAVE. –SHARE IF YOU ARE THANKFUL”

This was the first meme that popped up on my Facebook Home page this morning when I was laying in bed. For whatever reason, I instantly felt guilty. I suppose I am no different than most folks who have grown up with the concept—whether through our parents and grandparents, or, more likely, just too much television and movies—of God as wish-granter. We pray for our team to win, for our friends to travel safely, for our child to make the team, and for ourselves to get that new job. We ask our Higher Power for that stuff. We usually ask nicely, too, starting most requests with “Please God….” Even if we didn’t grow up in a very religious family, the God-as-wish-granter theme permeates our culture. If we really, really want something, we ask God. We call it prayer. 

I don’t pray a lot. Well, not in the traditional, down-on-my-knees-at-bedtime kind of praying. It is probably because my concept of God is a little different than the usual one (see my post “Who Is God?” from December 2015). I believe deeply in God as All There Is, including you and me. I believe that all of the Universe is Divine. This doesn’t mean that I am not allowed to pray; it just changes the context of the conversation a bit. You might even say it makes a prayer out of everything I think, say, or do. When I have my occasional direct words aimed at God as seemingly something outside of me—what most folks would recognize as my nearest thing to traditional prayer—it definitely is all about gratitude. I don’t make direct requests. I give direct thanks, usually for a simple but beautiful moment where the Divine just seems to permeate every bit of the moment. More often than not, it is when I am either observing Nature’s beauty or watching my kids be the miraculous little creatures that they are. Sometimes it simply overwhelms my heart, and I just whisper, “Thanks, God.” Those are my conversations with God.

Even though traditional prayer is a rarity for me, because of my worldview that holds everything as fully God, it may be reasonable to conclude from that that all of my thoughts, words, and deeds are a form of communication with God. When I hear of a religious extremist’s story of withholding medical treatment from their suffering child, preferring instead to “leave it in God’s hands,” I usually find myself shouting at the screen, “But YOU are God, and so is the DOCTOR and the MEDICINE! Please pray, of course, but DO SOMETHING! To not try to save your child is actually taking it out of God’s hands, not the other way around! Your hands are God’s hands!!!” I know that is not how everyone sees things, but my view shapes my perceptions.

With that said, and if my thoughts and actions are my form of communication with God, then I am totally guilty of making my prayers into Wish Lists rather than Thank You Notes. Almost always I am in STRIVING mode. I am thinking about or doing something that is about me striving for something else. Something more. Something better. I am trying to get out of this situation and into one that speaks more truly to who I am and what my dreams are. I can be pretty single-minded about it, too. The translation of this—given my concept of God—is essentially that I am not grateful for where I am and I want to get out of here. In regular prayer terms: “Please God, rescue me and bring me the type of success I desire!”

That is the source of the quick jolt of guilt I received when I read that Facebook post this morning. It hits me on a parallel to the way it hits other people, even though we pray differently. I am just as guilty as making my prayer a request rather than a “Thank You.” Seeing that more clearly now is a great reminder for me to become more about the NOW. It means that I can, even in the midst of my striving for better and more, become more fully present and aware of all the wonderful gifts in my life as I now know it. I think of the health of my family, which has been really, amazingly good throughout my life (knocking on my desk right now!). I think of my convenient work schedule and the corresponding opportunity to spend so much time with my kids. I think of my ability to share my words with you and others all over the world. I think of all the freedoms I have because I live in America, and all the comforts I enjoy—clean water, safety, a warm home of my own, to name a few—as a middle-class member of this society. These are all things well worthy of my deep and abiding gratitude, and not just once in a while. To fail to become more aware of these fabulous gifts—and thus more consistently grateful—would be a show of immense disrespect to my beautiful life and the magnificence of the God I believe in.

It doesn’t have to mean that I must stop striving to improve my life and the world around me, however. Even in my haste to improve myself and my station, I can still acknowledge and honor the wonder of the gifts I am presently living with. The concepts of Striving and Gratitude do not have to be mutually exclusive. They don’t have to compete with each other. So, I can take time to step out of my actions—the bulk of which are Striving things—to say “THANK YOU,” which is a Being thing. I can be both grateful and ambitious. I can say prayers of thanks and do acts of ambition. Oh yeah, and I should probably take a few moments to just sit and BE. To stop thinking and striving. To just ENJOY. That sounds like it would be okay, too. I am pretty sure God is in that silence, too. I will meet Her there.

How about you? How do you pray? Open up your journal and think about your relationship with your Higher Power. What is the tone of most of your communication? Are you usually there to ask or to thank? What do you ask for? Big, general things, like world peace or an end to hunger? Or smaller, specific things, like your blind date to go well or the weather to be nice? Do you feel guilty asking for things for yourself? If everything you do is actually a prayer about how you want your world to be, what is your lifestyle saying about what you desire the most? Are your actions more grounded in the present, or are you like me and often focused on building your someday? How often do you consciously thank your Higher Power, for either your life in general or a specific stroke of good fortune? Do you believe in a God that picks and chooses which prayers to answer, which wishes to grant? Do you think that showing more gratitude would make God more likely to answer your prayers? On a spectrum from All Requests to All Thanks, where do you land regarding your conversations with God? Leave me a reply and let me know: What are you grateful for today?  

Personify abundance in all you do,

William

The Facebook ‘Friends’ You Wish Were Your Real Friends

IMG_1091“If you hang out with chickens, you’re going to cluck, and if you hang out with eagles, you’re going to fly.” –Steve Maraboli

Hello friend,

I don’t do a very good job of making friends. I am introverted, so I don’t seek out social situations. I am also a bit shy, so I am not very chatty and outgoing when I do meet new people. I would say I am courteous but not engaging. Some—or all—of that may be due to the fact that I have an inherent disgust for small-talk. It tends to make my skin crawl. It is, by its very nature, superficial. I don’t do superficial well at all. I prefer to either dive right into a meaningful interaction or be ignored altogether.

With all that, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t do high school very well when it came to reputation. I had my group of close friends, no doubt, but most people thought I was “stuck-up,” our word for arrogant and just generally thinking you are better than everyone else. I don’t deny that there was some of that in the mix, but, at this distance of almost 25 years, it is clear to me that most of my reputation stemmed from my innate repulsion to all things petty and superficial, most notably small-talk. Unfortunately, that encompasses the bulk of the high school experience outside of your closest friend group. I just didn’t have it in me to pretend to be everyone’s best friend. A small but true handful was all my nature could handle. It still is.

Sadly, in addition to not being a good maker of friends, I am also a very poor keeper of friends. Well, at least in the usual sense. I am terrible at staying in touch: making the call, sending the birthday card, getting to the class reunion, or setting up the boys weekend. As a result, I have basically lost touch with almost all of my best friends. That doesn’t feel so good. On the other side of it, I still consider all of my best high school buddies to be my best friends, contact or not. I still value them like I did when we were together every day and would still do anything for them. They are my boys, and that is that. In my head! Maybe they are like the ghosts I wrote to you about last time, their relationship with me existing perfectly in my head only. Maybe they have either forgotten about me or allowed the passage of time to lessen their love for me in a way that my heart simply doesn’t operate.

My heart and my head seem to be like vaults. What was once placed there is secure forever. Perhaps that is something of a curse, though, lulling me into thinking I do not have to work to maintain those relationships just because I feel the same way about my loved ones that I always have. It is probably the case that while I am silently moving on with these timeless feelings, the other side is moving on to new relationships that more clearly and consistently reveal themselves. I hold onto ghosts of friendships past and don’t seek out new ones, figuring I am all set in the best friend department. Like I said, for better or worse, it is my nature to have only a few of the best kind and almost none of the superficial.

With all that said, it will probably come as no surprise to you that I was one of the last, stubborn holdouts of the Facebook era. I heard people sing its praises for years and years and still had no interest in trying it. For one, it just sounded so time-consuming. I pictured everyone sitting around writing little notes about themselves all day and couldn’t imagine myself having the time or interest to do that. Granted, I had never actually seen a Facebook page, but this is how I imagined it. And second—and most important to our discussion today—was my complete distaste for the idea that people were writing and sharing these notes with people they weren’t really friends with. Why in the world would you become “friends” with someone who was never your true friend, who you just knew in the superficial high school way? This concept was absolutely beyond my comprehension and seemingly totally contrary to my nature. Facebook and I, it seemed, would never become friends.

So it went for years and years, until I finally created “Journal of You” and needed a way to tell people about my posts every week. My sister suggested I join Facebook and connect with some old friends and relatives to at least share it with them. So, I reluctantly signed up for an account. BOOM! Blast after blast came flooding from the past! Suddenly I was seeing the faces of my high school—even elementary school–classmates who had completely disappeared from my life more than 20 years before. Some were friends then, some barely acquaintances.

Initially, I told myself that I would just connect with them for the purpose of the blog, as the entire exercise seemed extremely awkward to me. Much to my surprise, however, instead of being repulsed by the idea of becoming “friends” with these characters from my past, I became quite tickled by discovering all about their new lives. As a voracious learner, I delighted in studying their posts to meet their families and friends, and also to learn about their pastimes and passions. My wife had many occasions to roll her eyes as I sounded like a great-grandpa musing, “This Facebook thing is REALLY COOL!”

It wasn’t long before I developed a minor addiction, making it a habit to catch up on my Newsfeed each night. It was during this time that I confirmed my long-held concern that Facebook could take up a lot of time. To counter that, though, were the warm feelings that stemmed from making the kind of modern-day connections that come from “likes” and comments on posts. It was so cool to get a like on a blog post from someone in my Advanced Algebra class or a happy comment from one of my pals from fifth grade. In the midst of my otherwise-unsocial existence, where I hardly speak to anyone outside of my house, here I was being touched with a little sense of community. I was simultaneously surprised and thrilled by it. Hence, “This Facebook thing is REALLY COOL!” 

Other than the simple delight of these little moments of cyber-connection, my big “A-HA!” from my year or so on Facebook is that, in following all of these “friends,” I have come to wish that some of them actually would be my friends. Real friends. Human ones, not electronic ones. In following people’s posts in my daily check of the Newsfeed, I feel like I have gotten a real sense of how some people are (or at least how I imagine them to be). Some of it is the articles, videos, or memes that they share. Some of it is what they write about their experience of the world. Some of it is their family photos and captions. Those things are very intriguing to me. The rest comes from what they like or comment on from my posts, as I am very sensitive to that.

The end result is that I have this handful of people that I feel a real affinity to, who I would very much like to be put in the same room with for a few days to see if we would save the world somehow, or at least become true friends. I am not talking about people that were my best friends before but we somehow lost touch along the way. No, I am talking about people who I either hardly knew at all, knew only when we were young kids, or were only somewhat friendly with but hardly thought of making the effort to keep tabs on. Now, however, through the magic of Facebook, I wish these “friends” were my friends. They are:

  • Stephanie—I honestly have no recollection of any level of friendship with her in high school–no specific memories at all—but now I find her an inspiration and a delight. I love all of the stuff she posts about, and she says nice things about my kids’ pictures (the easy way to get on this list!). She is thoroughly positive, which is endlessly appealing to me.
  • John—I think I last heard from him in seventh grade and were on okay terms before that, but I love the specific comments he has made on my posts, and I like the energy of his.
  • Susan—We were decent friends in high school, but I haven’t seen her since. She posts a lot about parenting her brood of kids, one who has special needs. I love the honesty with which she shares, and no matter how funny or self-deprecating the story is, I can feel the gratitude oozing from my screen. I can just tell that she is an awesome parent and role model.
  • Jillian—She is actually not a school friend but a second cousin and much younger than I, who I mostly knew when she was a little kid. She fits in here because I now love following her posts as a mother of a little one. It is so clear how much she appreciates her life and the gift of parenthood.
  • Kassie—This one is not a childhood acquaintance but rather someone who I crossed paths with a few times through work many years ago. Now, I absolutely LOVE following her story, which includes overcoming the deepest grief, battling to be healthy, and finding love and peace wherever you are. She is an amazing inspiration to me from afar. Then, once in a while, she sneaks me a little comment that never fails to lift me up.

There are others, of course, that make me very grateful that I finally joined the modern world and Facebook. The common themes that hook me and make me wish we could all get together in one room seem to be gratitude and positivity. These people are a wonderful reminder of what I need to be better at delivering to the people in my own world, both on Facebook and to the flesh-and-blood humans I meet and know. I want it to be clear from everything I say, write, and do. In the end, I just want to be the kind of guy that someone would want to be friends with.

How about you? Are there people in your world—real or cyber—that you would like to be real friends with? Open up your journal and make a list of them. From what part of your life do they come? High school? Work acquaintances? Relatives? What is it about each of them that you are drawn to? Is there a common theme—like my gratitude and positivity—or does each appeal to you for different reasons? How good of a job have you done at staying in touch with your friends from the different stages of your life? Have the relationships that have faded over the years done so for good reason? Are you like me and maintain the same feelings and faithfulness to people no matter how much time passes, or do your relationships fade in your heart with the passage of time? What role has Facebook played in rekindling your old relationships? Do you use it mostly as a voyeur, or do you post and comment often as well to share your story? Have you discovered people whose posts and comments you are very much drawn to, who you would like to become true friends with even though you never were before? How odd does that seem to you? How great? I love to discover something new and wonderful, especially in a person. How about you? Leave me a reply and let me know: Who are the Facebook “friends” you would like to become real friends with, and why?

Be unabashedly YOU,

William

Lessons From A Slave

DSC_0906“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” –Cynthia Ozick

Hello friend,

I am guilty. Sometimes I get self-indulgent and actually start to believe that the world is being tough on me. I think I am too busy and working too hard. I wonder, “Why is life so difficult? What did I do to deserve this?” It doesn’t take much to trigger these grumbling moments:

  • Not getting enough sleep due to kids and other commitments, such as staying up late to write this letter to you.
  • My back is stiff from standing too long, especially on a hard floor at my job.
  • My muscles are sore from working out at the gym.
  • I have to miss a night of putting my kids to bed because of a special event at work. I HATE missing even a single bedtime with them; it pains my heart terribly.
  • My wife is leaning on me too hard about what to do with my time or with our money.
  • My palate is bored because I have had Cheerios for breakfast four times this week, and I make the same half-dozen different meals for supper each week.
  • It feels like I am losing track of my siblings because I only spend a few long weekends per year with them, which feels woefully inadequate.
  • Other than visiting my hometown for Christmas and taking a couple of long weekends at the family lake cabin in the Summer, we haven’t been on a “real vacation” in several years.

And on and on and on. You get the picture. There are so many opportunities to grumble, so many temptations to cast the verdict that Life Is Difficult.

Thankfully, though, once in a while, a reality check comes along and smacks me upside the head, knocking some sense into me. This past week, I have been getting a daily dose of that smacking. At her request, I bought my wife a DVD copy of the film “12 Years A Slave” for Christmas, as we have never seen it. Knowing the weight of the topic, we have been waiting for just the right time to watch it. From all indications, it is the kind of movie that requires some processing afterwards. So, it has been looming out there for a couple of months now, a haunting-but-magnetic abyss, just waiting to be plunged into.

I think the Universe knows about this stuff, though, and it has a way of making you face the things you need to face if you want to remain at peace. So, when I finished my book last week and went to my library’s online shelves for a new one, what should jump right off the screen at me but 12 Years A Slave, by Solomon Northrup, the true story that inspired the award-winning movie. Call it what you like—fate, destiny, synchronicity, the Law of Attraction—but the Universe was knocking on my door that day. I answered.

I am only just past the halfway point in the story now, and it undoubtedly has many more lessons for me to learn, but its effect has certainly been felt already. Before I go further, though, perhaps a short synopsis would help. Solomon Northrup was an African-American, born free in New York in the early 1700s. He grew up there, married, and had children. With the promise of good pay for some temporary work, he was led away from his family to Washington, DC, where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana. He remained there for twelve years. I am not yet to the part of the book where he returns to freedom, but it was upon his return in the mid-1700s that he wrote his story. It is clear that he is both well-educated and humble, and the tale seems to be completely unembellished.

What the book does well, however, is detail the daily life of a slave on a cotton plantation, and, in this case, one with a particularly vicious master. It is devastating, truly, and so difficult to comprehend how these people kept themselves going from one day to the next, one sorrowful year after another, with nothing more to look forward to in their lives than returning to the dust from which they came. It has certainly made me do a double-take on the life that I am sometimes tempted to grumble about.

  • Not getting enough sleep? The slaves slept lightly due to hypervigilance, knowing that if they were not in the fields working when the sun came up, they would be whipped mercilessly. They worked past dark in the field, then had to return and do all of the regular chores before they were allowed to make their own supper and go to their brief sleep—on the ground or a piece of wood, no mattress or pillows. Every day of the year.
  • My back a little stiff from standing at my part-time job? The slaves worked at a breakneck pace to keep up and get their daily quota of pounds of cotton, being whipped if they dared pause for even a moment, and then being thoroughly brutalized with the whip at the end of the day if they didn’t hit their number. No matter how sick or injured, the drill was the same: work every moment and produce well, or face the wrath of the master.
  • Sore from the gym? I won’t even bother addressing this one.
  • Missing a night of putting my kids to bed? Slaves and their children were regularly sold away from each other without regard, leaving both sides devastated and the parents to live with only the hope that their child’s master would be one of the more humane ones. Nothing more. Not the chance to put them to bed, to watch them grow up, or to even know if they had become grandparents. Nothing.
  • Time and money pressures? The slaves never had a choice about what to do with their time. They couldn’t pursue their passions or take a personal day, couldn’t even decide in which order to do their own chores. There was no money to be concerned with at all. Their bodies were bought and sold by others instead.
  • Bored with a limited menu? The slaves of Louisiana were given a small amount of bacon and corn meal each week, enough for two small meals per day. Never anything different or more, even if the bacon spoiled or became infested with bugs that week.
  • Losing track of siblings? Just as with children, it was a rare case that a slave was on the same plantation as any other member of her family. The concept of family basically ceased to exist.
  • Haven’t had a “real vacation”? This may seem silly to even address, but it is a good review of the rest. As I mentioned, the slaves worked every single day, had no money to go anywhere with, and had neither family nor family home to visit. If they were caught trying to go to a good place, they would likely have paid with their lives, or at the very least 500 lashes with the whip, “well-laid on,” as was the lingo. Perhaps death would be preferable.

Slavery is, for me, simply an unimaginable existence. Even with a good master, it is still bondage. And, as Northrup says, that is NEVER better than even the worst days of freedom. I think that most days, I am extremely grateful for my existence and well aware of my blessings. But after this perfectly unpleasant reminder called 12 Years A Slave, it is clear to me that it would be nothing short of a disgrace to complain about my circumstances (or almost any circumstances above poverty or incarceration). So, when I become self-indulgent and feeling oppressed by lack of income or busy-ness or missing my kids’ bedtime, I think of the slaves. They had it a billion times worse than I do, and through no fault of their own and no great deed of mine.

My life is darn good by any measure, but when I think about those slaves and the complete absence of opportunity to live their dreams—or even to think that the concept of having dreams was pertinent to them—my heart just breaks, and I know how, on the wide spectrum of human experiences across history, mine is at the far, far end to the positive. I am a truly blessed being. I thank my lucky stars for that.

How about you? How aware of your blessings are you? Get out your journal and consider your existence. What are your biggest gripes? Who or what seems to be oppressing you? Is it certain people? Your financial situation? Your health? How bad is it? Go ahead and indulge yourself for a moment: name what is weighing you down, and just how much it weighs. Now consider a comparison. If slavery doesn’t do it for you—maybe you want something that feels more contemporary to you—imagine the people living today under oppressive regimes, without the freedom express themselves or live as they choose. Or pick someone from a Third World country, where economic conditions keep the people from moving beyond addressing their most basic survival needs. What do your woes look like in comparison? Does it make you feel embarrassed to complain? The goal here is not to make you wrong for having gripes, but rather to make you more aware of, perhaps, how well you have it in the grand scheme of things. So, on a scale of 0-100, with zero being completely stifled by your circumstances and 100 being completely blessed and unoppressed, where do you stand? Leave me a reply and let me know, What lessons do a slave’s life teach you? 

Gratitude is beautiful,

William

An Unfriendly Reminder

DSC_0408“When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.” –Herophilus

Hello friend,

A little over ten years ago, I came to understand suicide more clearly.

Sure, I had spent time thinking about it over the years, but mostly in theoretical terms. I would hear about people killing themselves and always wonder, “Why?” In the tenderness of my youth, I wanted to believe I was so empathetic that I really could understand the depths of despair. When my first love broke my teenage heart, I was a mess inside. I was pretty far gone, but not so far that I wasn’t aware of my thoughts. Among other things, I thought a lot about suicide. Not actually doing it—I never considered it as an option—but about the concept of suicide. Being depressed for that short time really triggered something in me, a deeper intellectualization of suicide. I thought about it regularly: about how people’s emotions can turn an otherwise-clear mind irrational, and about how belief—whether rational or not—that one’s life has no hope for improvement can make ending that life seem like an appealing option. Traps of the heart and mind. That, in a nutshell, is how suicide appeared to me until about the age of thirty. And then, it all changed.

I herniated a disc in my lower back. I won’t go into the complete nightmare sequence of events led by the HMO-directed thinking of doctors who were way out of their expertise, but suffice it to say that in the end, I was literally stuck in a sideways-bent position for days on end as they continued to multiply the doses of narcotics but failed to get me the right tests and specialists to provide any relief. I distinctly recall sitting—if you could call it that—alone in my basement one afternoon, sobbing and wailing because it hurt so badly. It was in that moment, and in the ensuing days of agony that led up—finally—to my surgery, that I arrived at a new understanding of suicide. It wasn’t only about mental and emotional pain and despair, as I had previously believed. No, the ending of one’s own life could be deemed a desirable outcome if enough physical pain was involved for a long enough time. Again, much like when I was suffering from a broken heart, I didn’t actually consider killing myself during the episode with my back, but I surely thought about the concept often. My mind just gravitated to the topic. I put myself in the position of people who are suffering from some types of terminal cancer or other chronic, severe, and debilitating pain, and believe me, I completely understood their desire to end their lives “prematurely”. In that much pain and with no end in sight, it became easy to understand the “This isn’t living” rationale. If I weren’t being careful with my words, I would describe the kind of pain I was in as “unbearable”. However, at least I knew that a solution would come eventually, and with it relief. I knew I could lay down my burden; others are not so lucky.

Even though I have some lingering nerve damage in my leg from the blundering of those doctors that did not get me the proper care in time—yes, I am a little bitter still if you couldn’t tell–my essential health was restored eventually. There is a scar on my spine that will stay with me, but otherwise my body moved on. After a year, I had pretty well put behind me my medical nightmare and the horrific pain I was in for those dark days. One lesson I kept with me was to always try to maintain strength in my core muscles and overall fitness. The other lesson that I was sure that I would hold onto forever was to be grateful for my health every day that I have it. The incident had made me keenly aware of how precious and fleeting good health is—much like life itself—and thus how aware and grateful I should be each day to be alive and relatively pain-free. I vowed to never forget. How could I?

Well, I did forget. I got complacent. I did the right things physically to try to avoid another disaster, but I got sloppy with the gratitude part. I stopped reminding myself what a magnificent gift it is to wake up and breathe easily in the morning, to be able to wrestle with my kids and give them shoulder rides, to run around and hit tennis balls, to survive a hot yoga class, and to simply walk the earth without the distraction of pain. Sure, I have had pretty regular injuries to remind myself what a hassle they are, but mostly I have been able to press on and continue an active life. And, I am sad to admit, a blindly ungrateful one, too.

It seems that the better my health has been, the less grateful for it I have been. For me at least, it is the biggest one I let slip through the cracks when it comes to prayers of gratitude. I feel like I am pretty self-aware when it comes to how lucky I am to have such wonderful people in my life. My parents and siblings are the best ever, and I wouldn’t trade any of them in. I can hardly imagine my luck in finding someone who actually chose to have me around for life, so, needless to say, I am grateful for my amazing wife. And of course, my kids are the greatest things that have ever happened to me. I feel like I know that every day, too. I am so aware of how they make my heart overflow, so I pretty much ooze gratitude when it comes to them. I know, too, how lucky I am to be allowed a schedule that matches my priorities, offering me tons of quality time with the family, as well as some stolen moments to pursue my passions, such as writing this letter to you. I am well aware of how spoiled I am in this regard, so I am deeply grateful.

I always tell people that one of the biggest benefits of keeping a daily journal is that it makes me intensely self-aware, and that the main benefit of this self-awareness is gratitude for my beautiful existence. As I said, I feel like this is very true in all of the other areas of my life. So, why do I do so poorly in acknowledging the blessings of good health? Being a sports lover, the analogy that comes to my mind is of the referee (or the ballkids in tennis). The goal of the referee—or the ballkid—is to NOT be noticed. If you notice them, it is probably because they are doing a bad job. Health seems to be, for me, like that. If I don’t notice my health, that means the job is being done well. If I do notice it—like this past week, when my spine has again gone awry and left me agonizing—something is wrong. I can see now—pain sometimes has a way of clarifying things—that this is not fair to my health. I am hereby vowing to do a better job of acknowledging—DAILY–the wonderful fortune it is to be in good health. I love Herophilus’s quote at the top of the page; it really is true that without health, our other gifts cannot shine through. I am so driven to maximize my potential, so I would be a fool not to honor the instrument through which all things flow. Like with so many people around us, a simple show of gratitude and respect can do wonders. It is time I started to set things right. I am only sorry that it required this week’s unfriendly reminder from my spine to help me see the light.

How about you? How is your relationship with your health? Open up your journal and start writing. Make a list of the aspects of your health that you appreciate. Can you make it through the day without pain? Do you require any medications or devices to function normally? Do you like a good fitness challenge? Do you sleep comfortably? Are you able to “act like a kid” sometimes, full of energy and freedom? Can you run? Could you still climb a sledding hill? Jump in the pool or lake for a swim? Run through the sprinkler? Ride a bike? Chase a kid around all day? Do you set goals for your health and fitness? Do you go to a gym or have a regular workout routine? How is your diet? If you could change your weight any amount in either direction, what would you choose? Do you know of people who are less healthy than you? Perhaps they have cancer, cardiovascular disease, an autoimmune disorder, arthritis, or obesity. In thinking about them, does it make you more grateful for the health that you have? Does it motivate you to take action to improve your health? How grateful are you about your status? Are you like me and take it for granted when it is going well, only to be reminded of your ingratitude when you are stricken down with something? Leave me a reply and let me know: Do you appreciate your health, or does it require an unfriendly reminder? 

Start your day with “Thank you”,

William

Reconnecting With Mother Earth

IMG_1128Hello friend,

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” –John Muir

I have been a bit pent-up lately. Stressed. Conflicted. Disconnected. Feeling the pinch of learning a lot of new things all at once while also running out of time to do all of the things that I feel are essential to my progress toward my dreams. I have spent too much time in my head and too much time in judgment of myself for not doing more and better every day. I have allowed my mind to leave the precious present and drift too long and too often into the future, plotting a million different scenarios for the months and years to come. The need to have it all figured out and be moving efficiently in the “right” direction toward my dreams has overtaken me a bit. Frankly, I have been in need of a break. A chance to pull back a bit, get my bearings again, and ground myself in the principles that mean the most to me. I have needed to refocus, to dial back into who I really am and what drives me. I have just needed to be reminded of all of the magnificent blessings in my life and the greater purpose behind it. I have needed clarity.

So today, I finally had a quiet couple of hours in my schedule. As busy as I have felt recently, it kind of shocked me that these hours existed. I could think of a zillion things that seemed like they “needed” to be done or “should” be done to catch up, keep up, or get ahead. Guilt and Conscience were tearing me in all different directions. But when noon rolled around and I finished my last appointment of the morning, that window in my schedule seemed to reach out to my soul and call to my restless mind. I knew what I had to. I needed to get outside. I needed to find water. 

I love to be outside. The feeling of fresh air on my skin and in my lungs is simultaneously so soothing and yet so invigorating. It simply brings life back into me. The more man-made stuff you can remove from the scene, the better I feel in my heart. I love being with the grass and the trees and the wildlife. Living in a metropolitan area, I rarely get to that cherished feeling of connectedness to Mother Earth that I used to find so easily and so often in my wandering days. Cross-country drives were the norm, with stops at national parks and forests always foremost on the itinerary. In those days and on those trips, bliss and contentment came easily to me. I was always keen to find the next spot that made me feel most certainly that I had united with The Divine.

And there was water. Yes, wherever I felt that Divine Unity most intensely, you could be quite certain that the prominent feature of the scene was water. Forests might be there. Mountains might be there. Spectacular sunsets, too. Perhaps beautiful birds or deer. Maybe even butterflies or fireflies. But always, always water.

A few times in my life I have considered where I might have my ashes scattered if I ever wanted a say in the matter. My mind instantly flies to my favorite locations, spots that have found me in a state of the deepest Peace and Gratitude and Connectedness to my Source. The shores of Avalanche Lake in Glacier Park. A rock in the middle of the roaring McDonald Creek in Glacier, whitewater pouring down the mountain on all sides of me. The shores of the Greek Islands on the Mediterranean Sea at sunset. The shores of the Pacific Ocean, any time of day. The end of the dock at Pelican Lake, sunset. The emotions just pour out of my system as these images flash across my mind in my slideshow of Peace.

Nature has that effect on me. It is so stark and simple in its manner, and yet so utterly powerful and majestic in its beauty and grace. It is dynamic but still so wonderfully, reassuringly constant. Unlike us humans, it has no pretense and no ego to maneuver around. It is transparent. And it is, quite simply, awesome.

That is why, when that little window appeared in my schedule, my pent-up, disconnected mind was achingly, automatically drawn away from my computer screen and out the door of my house, just down the road about a mile or so. I brought along my journal. This is what I had to say:

Alright, this is a good place to write from. I suppose I mean that physically and emotionally. I am floating in my kayak on the edge of Alimagnet Lake, tucked back in a quiet bay. Whenever the easy breeze rises up a bit, my evidence is the sound of a handful of leaves bouncing off the other branches as they float their way to the ground. Future generations of grasses and trees will use these decaying leaves as fertilizer in this beautiful, endless circle of Life. I feel that now. It is nice to be here. Even though the sky shows only the spectrum of grays, being here makes it feel as though it is still a lovely day. The water has a way of doing that. It brings a certain Peace to everything around it. If I had a pillow, I could fall asleep here. When I first got out on the water, I had to kind of convince myself that it was okay to not be doing homework or TJP or starting the next blog post, that I could have this time to just reconnect with the water and that Peace and Mother Earth. I had to give myself permission to float. It is tough for me to make quietude, inner Peace, and connection to Nature agenda items. Tangibles and measurables are easier to justify. This is so, so good for me, though. It has the soothing quality of a hot bath, but it resonates much deeper. It is the kind of place I could sit for hours in serenity and gratitude. Even as I sit here and try to simply be in this moment, it is a challenge to not egg myself into, “I need to do this more often!” Of course I should, but I don’t necessarily want that to be my focus now. That can be one of my takeaways at the end. Right now I just want to take in the ripple on the distant water and the easy floating leaves on the glassy water surrounding my kayak. I want to absorb the magic palette in the trees across the lake and the fluttering of the leaves in the trees behind me. I want to be the water. The magical, wise, constant water. So completely embodying Peace and Power simultaneously. Its effect envelopes me as I gaze and breathe, gaze and breathe. My heart floats like the falling leaf, blissful in the knowledge that it will be gently received by the water’s surface. There is fellowship here. Community. Unity. God. Plainly God. So I peek over at my muskrat friend on the floating tree, give him a “Namaste,” and silently thank him for sharing the world with me. I feel as though I am oozing Peace and Gratitude. I am liquid Bliss. It really is All God. Life is truly beautiful.

And with that, I am back! I feel like I know myself again. I have checked in with home base, gotten my lens prescription fixed, and am ready to re-enter the world. In reconnecting with Mother Earth, I have reconnected with me.

How about you? What grounds you? Open up your journal and explore the places—or people or activities—that center you when you have lost your way. Is it one place specifically, or does it work in any place that resembles your favorite (e.g., any waterfront will do)? Do you need to be alone to find that Unity and Peace, or can other people be present (or must they be)? Do you have to be still (e.g., sitting in meditation or floating in my kayak), or is activity required (e.g., swimming laps or playing basketball or taking a drive)? Is it more about engaging in something fully for you, or about disengaging? How do you define “Nature”? How often do you feel like you get there? How would it benefit you to find it more often? Is there one aspect of it—like the water for me—that centers you most? On a scale of one to ten, how grounded, peaceful, and clear-minded are you today? Would some time on the water make that number go up like it did for me? Leave me a reply and let me know: How do you get reconnected? 

Be boldly the one and only YOU,

William

Happy Gratitude Day!

DSC_0127“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” —Meister Eckhart

Hello friend,

I had a birthday this week. Birthdays seem to be received in such a wide variety of ways as people move deeper into adulthood. I know people who will simply not acknowledge that it is their birthday. They bristle at any greetings or gifts from loved ones, sometimes even going so far as to question the intelligence of the well-wishers, as there is simply NOT a birthday occurring on this day. I know others who somewhat-begrudgingly acknowledge their day and humbly accept their gifts and greetings, but they don’t want to talk about how old they are or dive into any deep sentiment about the passage of time and the life they have lived. They will be pleased to have the day move into tomorrow, just another day. Still others I know are more than happy to use the occasion as an excuse to have a party, eat some yummy stuff, and misbehave a bit. It is another Halloween or St. Patrick’s Day for them.

For me, though, Birthday Mode is something different. I have never been much for wild celebrations, so it is always very low-key. I enjoy the cake, of course, and hanging out with my wife and kids. I like hearing from my parents and siblings, and birthdays and holidays tend to provide us with the excuse to finally make the connection. Other than the cake and a few extra phone calls, though, the day tends to look—on the outside, anyway–like most of the others.

On the inside, though, the concept of my birthday has changed. This year I was keenly aware all day that I have come to see it as “Gratitude Day,” a day to be reminded of all of the amazing gifts in my life, which are too many to count but can definitely be felt. So, while the day seemed to go on fairly normally on the outside, I was doing an internal meditation on these innumerable blessings and just how thankful I am for them.

Of course, I thought about the many wonderful people in my life. My wife and kids–with whom I shared the cake and the laughs that day–are the very best that I could imagine, so it was cool just to bask in that kind of gratitude that comes from being up close and personal with its source. My parents and siblings are such admirable people in so many ways, and so I found myself truly absorbing and appreciating each call, FaceTime, and voicemail. These are conversations that I cherish. And while I don’t have many close friends, I was well reminded of them and how interconnected they are with the story of my life. Without them, there is not me, and it was nice to take some time to ruminate on that idea.

The group of people that surprised me most in my level of gratitude for them was the Facebook crowd. Seriously! This is the first year I have been on Facebook—yes, I am a little slow to join the new millennium—and one of the people closest to me said that I should make open to the public as little about me as possible. She said she doesn’t list her birthday because she doesn’t want people who barely know her wishing her a Happy Birthday. I didn’t listen, of course, so how pleasantly surprised I was to get a little shout-out from dozens and dozens of folks, mostly old high school mates and distant relations. Though I would probably not recognize all of their faces if I saw them today, I was somehow very touched and appreciative of the little moment it took them to just type “Happy BDay” or the like. It reminded me of where I came from and also of the importance of small gestures and how I need to do better with them, as I was certainly grateful to every one of those folks who took that little moment. People are good!

Already in the gratitude flow, I found myself really aware of the little things that I generally take for granted. As a middle-class American suburbanite in the 21st century, I live so amazingly comfortably compared to most anyone in the history of the world. There is a fridge full of food and money to buy more. I know I will be warm through a Minnesota Winter. Everyone in my family is healthy, and we can see a doctor any time that changes. My bookshelves are full, and the library is nearby in a pinch. And I have the privilege of not having to think about this stuff everyday, leaving me free to do things like studying life coaching and writing this letter to you. It is definitely a good gig, this one of mine.

Finally, I took a page from The Secret and expressed my gratitude for all of the magnificence to come. Actually, I find myself doing this almost every day in my journal entries. I am in the habit of sharing my thanks in advance for the many wonderful blessings that are surely on the way (it helps that I see everything as a blessing in my philosophy). For me, this helps me to walk each day in gratitude and to maintain my unbridled optimism for the future. In that vein, this is how I closed my journal entry on my birthday afternoon:

I am going to have a very good 43rd year. I can feel that. There is so much growth out there for me, and I am wildly grateful for that. Lots of change, lots of growth, lots of Love, lots of fun, lots of memories. I am really, really excited for what is coming. I am about to jump out of my skin as I think about it right now. The Universe and I will be sharing our gifts with one another. I am SO excited. It truly is a happy Happy Birthday and Gratitude Day that I am basking in right now. God permeates. I am oozing Peace. Life is beautiful.

How about you? What are you grateful for today? Open up your journal and remind yourself why it is good to be alive and be you. What are the circumstances you are most thankful for? Do you have food and shelter? Do you have enough money to pay for those things? Do you feel safe where you live? Are you reading this on a computer or smartphone? Are you allowed to freely express yourself? Do you have the chance to pursue your dreams? Are you educated? If you answered “yes” to any of those things, you are off to a good start. If “yes” to all, how blessed you are! How about the people in your life? Think about all of your friends and family members who make your little corner of the world a place you appreciate. Which ones would you not trade for a million dollars? How many people would take that moment out of their day to send you a Facebook birthday wish? Would that moment make you smile the way it made me smile? Are you grateful for that moment? What about the coming moments? Do you allow yourself to be grateful in anticipation of good things to come? Is your level of optimism about the future reflected in the level of anticipatory gratitude you feel toward it, or do you keep these things separate? How do you treat your birthday? Do you deny it or embrace it? Do you celebrate big? Does it draw you into deep thought about your life and its many blessings? If you are like me, your birthday has become a lot like what the other big holidays have become: a chance to give thanks for this beautiful Life. Leave me a reply and let me know: Do you celebrate Gratitude Day?

Let your light shine,

William

So Long, Farewell

DSC_0819“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” –A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh 

Hello friend,

Whenever I think of goodbyes, I think of my parents. My Mom is all-in when it comes time to part ways. I think so fondly of the mornings at her house—the home of my childhood–after a long holiday stay, when I am packing the car with a million pieces of luggage. She makes sure to get up early to make a big breakfast. She finds a way to engage in a good conversation one last time, gently reminding me that I still feel so very much at home there. She comes by with lots of motherly love and rubs on the back. She tells me how glad she is that we came. She hugs. She kisses. There are lots of “I love you’s,” and even more heartfelt tears. She puts it all out there. It feels good to have a goodbye morning with her. I always drive away full of love and gratitude—and yes, a few heartfelt tears of my own. My Mom is the world champion of goodbyes.

And then there is my Dad. The man who occupies the same house on those sweet, sentimental goodbye mornings is nowhere to be found. Perhaps the dog needed to go out for an extra-long walk, or that darn post office box was in desperate need of a checking, or maybe something was left at the office. In any case, he will not be sharing in the farewell breakfast, the “I love you’s,” or the teary-eyed hugs. My Dad is the world champion of avoiding sentimental moments, especially goodbyes.

As the child of this wonderful good-cop/bad-cop duo, you might suspect that I am some kooky hybrid of the two. I suppose that is true. When it comes to that kind of goodbye with those nearest and dearest to me, I love the lingering, sentimental goodbye like my mother. I am hopelessly nostalgic, so I like to soak in those last moments of a visit like they are a warm bath, thoroughly enjoying both the moment and the grateful afterglow of the wonderful time we have shared (which makes leaving so difficult). I love the peaceful gratitude that comes from spending time with the right people. When it comes to anyone else, though, I would rather take my old man’s route and avoid it altogether. Just get me out of there!

I have been full of goodbyes lately. A few days ago, I left a job and career of many years, in the process bidding farewell to many people who hold all sorts of different places in (and out of) my heart. In the week leading up to the final departure, as I saw folks for possibly the final time, I noticed my heart and mind run through the full extremes of responses, both in the goodbye itself and even in the mere anticipation of the goodbye.

On the one hand, I really appreciated the opportunity to say farewell to some of the players, mostly because I wanted to thank them for all of the their time and effort and commitment over the years. We had been through a lot together, and a player-coach relationship can go pretty deep. I definitely felt that in my inclination to touch base with my long-time players. The more I had invested in them—and vice versa—the more I wanted to connect with them one last time and thank them for the ride. It is a great gift to get the chance to coach someone who is invested in their own improvement, and I wanted to linger in that gratitude a bit in my final moments with those special people.

Otherwise, though, I mostly wanted to avoid people all week. If I wasn’t close with someone personally, didn’t care for them, or never made that great connection that comes when someone really lets you join in their fight for their own advancement and self-confidence, I absolutely did not want a farewell. I was actually even a bit repulsed by the idea. It was the complete opposite of my reaction with the other players.

I seem to fall on the “Give me the genuine and heartfelt, or let’s not waste our time” when it comes to goodbyes. But as I write that, I see that that is exactly how I am at my core and why I mostly keep to myself. If I am going to interact, I prefer it to be deep and meaningful. I don’t suffer the shallow stuff very well. So, I don’t avoid most goodbyes the way my old man does—to hide from the emotions that might come up—but rather because they won’t bring any emotions up. That is why I had no inclination to say goodbye to coworkers; I was not close to any of them. If no one knew I was leaving, I could have easily walked out the door just like any other day and never looked back. I suppose that sounds cold or simply weird, but that is a pretty normal feeling for me. I have had enough big transitions—moves or job changes—to know my patterns. I tend toward the deep and lasting OR a complete severing of ties (mostly the latter). I am not sure if that is a good or a bad trait, but it is certainly me.

Next week I will say goodbye to one of the best friends I have ever had. He is moving far away, and who ever knows what happens then? For the most part, I just want to have one of my Mom’s goodbye mornings with him and linger in the gratitude and fond memories. In some ways, though, I want to be my Dad and make his goodbye a little easier for him—it is already tough enough to move away from a life you have built, no doubt—by disappearing until he gets out of town and avoiding all the sentimental stuff. But this is a guy who tends to go dark, so what if this is the end? What if I don’t get the chance again to tell him that he’s the best and that I love him and that I thank him so, so much for all that he has been to me and my family?

This is when I know how much I am my mother’s son. The Truth in my soul demands a proper farewell, no matter how many tears must be shed or hugs must be hugged. It would be false to my Truth to go out to walk the dog for this one. I will stay. After all that we have been through, I must say my goodbye.

How about you? How do you do with goodbyes? Open up your journal and your heart, and share your Truth. Do you have a typical pattern for your big goodbyes? Are you the world champion of them, or are you the one who avoids them like the plague? Does your response change wildly, like mine, depending on the bond you have made? How have you handled your biggest goodbyes (e.g., moving away, leaving a job, even the death of a loved one)? I love the Dr. Seuss quote that goes “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Do you tend to be the one smiling or crying, or both? It can be a complicated matter, so dig deep on this one. Maybe allow the feelings to come out that you didn’t when you said (or avoided) some important goodbyes. It is a good release. In any case, tell your Truth. That is always the most important thing. Tell your Truth. Leave me a reply and let me know, How do you do goodbye? 

The real you is amazing,

William

Remembering America

DSC_0181“Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.” —Brene Brown

Hello friend,

I just returned from my 4th of July holiday weekend at the lake with my whole family: wife, kids, parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews. It was awesome! I am a huge lover of family gatherings, and when you add the lake and Summer to the deal, I am ecstatic. So, needless to say, I was feeling very happy and grateful all weekend. I was reminded of so many of the reasons I am glad to be me. Being surrounded by loved ones has a way of doing that.

But, even as I was enjoying each moment of the weekend, I couldn’t help but become a bit nostalgic for bygone days. Some of that nostalgia was the natural result of being on the lake where I spent the blissful, carefree Summers of my childhood. However, there was one event in particular that really sent me reeling back in time—back even before my time—and made me long for those bygone days of America in simpler times. What event could hold such an unexpected power over my heart and my memory? A boat parade, of course!

Like many lakes around the country, every year on the 4th of July, my family’s lake has a boat parade. Usually there is a theme—e.g. cartoons—and folks decorate their boats and passengers accordingly. This year, though, in an effort to get more boats involved, they invited anyone to join, and with any décor. So, at the very last moment, we decided to be a part of the parade. We grabbed a bunch of American flags and jumped on the pontoon. As we headed across the wavy waters on a dark, windy day—getting splashed in the face with each bump—I thought we would end up miserable and regretting our decision to participate. How wrong I turned out to be.

As we pulled our boat into the line that had already passed a quarter of the lake’s shoreline, I instantly took note of all the people who had come out to their decks and docks to watch and wave at us. It was people of all ages, often three generations at a single cabin. My nieces instantly got into it, shouting “U.S.A. Rocks!!!” at each gathered group as we slowly passed. My daughter soon jumped into the act, and my son relished the opportunity to blow the horn at everyone. Even as we fought the wind and waves, there was quite a celebratory spirit alive on the boat. The more people that waved and shouted at us from shore, the more fun it became. I was tickled at the joy that the children got in waving the American flag and greeting the onlookers with shouts and waves. I found myself openly joining them. It was a surprising treat.

That childish joy, however, was not the greatest gem that I discovered on that 4th of July boat parade. No, the real prize that was uncovered in that pontoon and on those docks was a sense of community and patriotism that I thought was long lost, a throwback to yesteryear. The longer the parade went—we were on a very big lake—the more amazed I became at the number of people who had come out to wave and to support both us and their country. It was almost every cabin! But it was not just the numbers that got me; it was the age range. It was little kids getting a great kick out of a parade, and it was their parents happy to share the experience with them. It was senior citizens. It was even teenagers!

It seemed clear to me that these folks had been coming out of these cabins to watch this parade for years and years, generation after generation, to pay a simple but heartfelt tribute to the good old U.S.A. and to the neighbors that had made the effort to make this holiday special. It felt like a real throwback to the time after the World Wars, when people actually were sincerely grateful that America existed and that they got to live here. There was a purity and innocence about it that moved me deeply.

The further we went along the parade route, the more beautiful the experience felt and the more grateful I became, both that we had chosen to participate and that I live in America. I really liked that there were these last vestiges of simpler times here in our increasingly impersonal, jaded, modern world. I so often find myself lamenting the fact that, even in my relatively safe neighborhood in suburbia, I don’t feel comfortable letting the kids out to play alone in the driveway or yard, and that it seems awkward to let them run over to see if the neighbor kids are home before I text the parents to see if it’s okay. I hate that I probably wouldn’t answer my doorbell if it rang right now. It seems that, in spite of all of our amazing technological advances in recent years, our sense of community has been lost. Likewise, it feels like it is open season on our country’s leaders and our nation’s actions around the world.

And yet, there I was in a boat parade on the 4th of July, and an entire community of people stepped out of their doors to wave to their neighbors and cheer on this magnificent place called America. I must say, it made my heart feel really, really good. It restored something inside of me that needed restoring. I remembered not only how great my country was, but also how great it still is.

How about you? How do you think America has changed in your lifetime? Get out your journal and take a trip back in time. How safe did you feel as a child? Did you know and trust your neighbors? How patriotic were you? How much respect did you have for the President and your government’s decisions regarding world affairs? Compare your answers to those questions with how you feel today in your neighborhood and in your country. How much has it changed? In what aspects of your life do you feel a genuine sense of community? How nostalgic are you? Do you look at the past through rose-colored glasses, or do you think you remember things quite accurately and impartially? Was our country better in your youth or now? How about your community? What other events—like the boat parade—feel as though they bridge the gap between today and yesteryear? Leave me a reply and let me know: How do you like to remember America?

Take the first step up your mountain today,

William