May you….

– find authentic inclusion with a group of caring friends. 

– enjoy significant connection and derive mutual satisfaction with members of your immediate and extended family and family of choice. 

– have meaningful work, work that respectfully uses your talents, strengths your imagination, and where your responsibilities and your authority are in sync.  

– have the capacity for humor that enriches – not diminishes or demeans – others. 

– discover new and wonderful and creative things about yourself despite your years of experience. 

– learn from past failures and have an increased and healthy awareness of your propensities and vulnerabilities rather than be weighed down by your failures.

– strive to be part of the solutions and not part of the problems in matters large and small. (Credit Dean Sherman)

– become even more skillful in knowing your limits, defining your boundaries, and therefore better able to love your enemies, friends, family, colleagues and strangers. 

– resist urges,  subtle or gross — all of which may be socially acceptable — to exploit others to accomplish your personal or professional goals. 

– do no harm and may none come to you. 

– truly understand you are superior to none, inferior to none and, if and while you think you are either, you are surely missing the joy of appreciating your own beautiful humanity.  

– be an agent of love, healing, learning, empowering, and peace. 

The “heart” of a person speaks. 

I am not referring to the fist size organ in your chest but to the enigmatic “place” within, the interlocking core of soul, spirit, mind, will, memory, aspirations, longings, regrets. The place where grief grieved, ignored, or overridden, lives. I refer to that complex “engine” within you and me that motivates and drives us.

Or doesn’t. 

It speaks, declares who we are, what we are made of, reveals itself hundreds and more times a day. 

We leave heartprints, handprints, footprints and cannot help but to do so. 

It comes with the power of our humanity.

What’s going on deep inside you and me is revealed in our words, affirmations or tongue lashings, blessing or bullying, and everything in between. Our hearts speak through the works of our hands and through the multiple tracks we leave as we move about the world. 

The angry, disappointed, abandoned, betrayed heart, will, if not guarded, lash out, take the pain out on others, usually those most loved or even those nearest, even strangers. Ever wondered why people yell at total strangers like the check out assistant in the supermarket? Pain, anger, will go somewhere.  

The peaceful, resolved, mature heart – nothing to do with age – the healed, understanding heart, the open heart, even unguarded, will spread peace, goodness, kindness and be quite unable but to do otherwise with loved ones and strangers. 

Alcohol abuse stings deeply.

And, it does so for generations.

It poisons. 

It sets children on edge often for a life-time of on-edge living. 

I know too well. 

The memories may be distant but my emotions still react and I often still feel the pain even though it’s been well over 5 decades since I was exposed to the incessant drinking of close relatives.

Remembering the energy I spent as a boy trying to maintain order in the family and reliving my futile efforts to steer adults away from drinking and the twisting and turning in bed when people raged with drunkenness refreshes the emotional exhaustion that is ever ready to awaken in my body, despite the years. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.

If you are a parent who indulges in alcohol and it shifts your moods and messes with your driving and threatens your employment and demands spending money you cannot afford and makes you want to pick on those whom you say you love and it is destroying all semblance of trust people may have in you, please seek help.

Humble yourself. 

Get the help you need.

You, and all whom you love, will be better off for it.

Generations to come will thank you.

Our no-strings-attached superpowers

I’m convinced that you and I have superpowers and the capacity to radically transform our immediate circle of influence.

Our capacity for hospitality is a superpower and, as powerful as it is, it goes beyond opening our homes to guests and strangers. It’s opening our hearts to everyone we encounter. It’s simple friendliness. It’s a no-strings-attached welcome to all. 

Our capacity for generosity is a superpower. We have it in us to share, to give, to alleviate burdens for others. It’s extending this natural gift to those who least expect it from us that elevates natural generosity into a superpower. It’s a planned no-strings-attached sharing of time and resources. 

Our capacity to both hear and listen to people is a superpower. When we offer people undistracted attention and hang onto every word they say, we are validating their story, their very existence. It’s a no-strings-attached gift proclaiming “I see and hear and value you” in an often indifferent world. 

Our capacity to treat all other people as equals (which they are) and with respect (which all people deserve) is a superpower. We can learn powerful and important lessons from anyone and everyone. This no-strings-attached acknowledgment of the treasures within all people, like all our human superpowers, cannot be faked. 

I am fascinated by process, time, growth; how life itself gets us ready for life itself. 

When my sons were very young neither they nor I could imagine them leaving, going off on their own. None of the three of us was ready for that. 

It is different now. 

It’s not that I want them gone. I do not. But I do want them to forge ahead with their own lives. I want them to find adventures in far off countries and to make friends with people I will never meet. 

Life prepared me for that transition. I find no resistance within me for it to continue. I thought I would hold onto the boys in some way but I cannot find it in me to do so. I am ready, we are ready for things none of the three of us could have foreseen us being ready for.

Life did it. The process did it. This is what I am celebrating. 

In the meantime I shall Value obscurity. Enjoy doubt. Celebrate ambiguity. Embrace mystery. Love complexity. I’ll stop searching for certainty, sureness, and seek simplicity. 

Not only can I not have all the answers, I  cannot even have most of the questions! 

Life itself, does it’s part in preparating us for life. 

Swimming, showering and bathing are the same thing. A shower with soap and shampoo cleans you for four or five days. Licking your fingers washes your hands. Biting an apple brushes your teeth. Potato chips IS vegetables. Flossing and flushing? Why? You just have to do it again.

Sleeping wastes time (weekends). People need sleep (school days). Making a bed is stupid. You get into the same one every night. Wearing a shirt inside out is putting on a clean shirt. Pulling a shirt over your head combs your hair. Putting clothes away means you just have to get them again. A bedroom is tidy if you can see (any part, even a smidgen) of the carpet. 

Lighted candles must be disturbed and never left alone. Drip the wax, always, anywhere. You can climb, throw, jump on anything if you really want. All bodies of water must be disturbed, no matter how peaceful or beautiful, you must throw something into it or skip stones. If you have a brother EVERYTHING is a competition. SHOTGUN for the front seat works even if you only think it. 

“There are two little English words,” my mothers would often sing, “that will open any door with ease. The one little word is THANKS; the other little word is PLEASE.” 

It’s clear to me that such common manners seem in short supply.

Is that your observation, too?

Stand back for someone, hold the door open, clear the way – and the recipients of common kindness quite often move on, ignore kindness, as if being served is their expectation and you are simply doing your job. 

Besides “please” and “thank you” there is another good manners suggestions I’d add:

Before you – anyone that is, myself included, of course – bank it, spend it, eat it, use it – if it was a gift – thank the person by calling or in writing who gave it to you.

“I haven’t had the time to write a thank you letter or make a thank you phone call,” I have heard.

What nonsense. 

If you found the time to use the gift you’ve certainly had the time to express thanks for it.

“My grandma (grandma, uncle, aunt) doesn’t expect a thank you card or a call,” he said.

That a generous person may expect no formal thanks does not mean it ought not be communicated. 

I had occasion to be with two women who work closely with the public. One, a hairstylist, the other is in guest services for a major hotel.

I asked how soon each was able to identify if a customer is going to be a difficult customer, high maintenance, or easy going. 

“They tell on themselves,” said the hairstylist without taking a moment to think, “as soon as you open your mouth to welcome them they start with the demands, and you are wrong before you even start.” 

“I can tell by how they walk in through the doors,” said the hotel employee, “and the first thing they do is tell you they booked online and they booked luxury. And now they want to upgrade this and upgrade that. I can see the booking. I know they are not truthful.”

“Easy going people are easy to see. They ask my opinion and really listen when I tell them what I can do. And they laugh a lot,” said the hairdresser.    

“When someone comes to check into the hotel and they are not pushing, and I don’t mean by what they say. Difficult people push, push with attitude. Easy people are nice to help. They are not trying to get something all the time.”   

What kind of day will you have today? 

An honest day, a day of kindness, a forgiving one, a day with time and an ear for the elderly and a smile for the foolishness of the blatantly arrogant.

What kind of person will you be today? 

A patient one, a person who listens to others, one who meets a financial need – small or large – of at least one other person today, a person who offers respect to people even if it is not returned.

It will not be by accident if you and I can ease into our beds this evening having had the kind of day and having been the kind of person as outlined briefly above. 

It will be the result of a plan. 

It will be the result of making decisions before we need them. 

No doubt, unexpected things happen and get in the way and upset the best intentions. The best designed apple carts can be upturned. 

None of the unexpected is likely to ruin your day if you have sat down and made a plan about what kind of day you want and what kind of person you will be. 

It is really rather simple, and, well, what have we got to lose that’s not already worth losing?