Sunrise, Sunset II

Do you remember the old riddle about how to eat an elephant? “One bite at a time.”

The big picture—a movie, for instance—is made up of a bunch of little pictures, run at speed in a sequence to create a larger whole. That’s kind of what life is: a series of little pictures, or one bite of an elephant at a time.

You have everything you need to manage a twenty-four hour period. Skills and resources are at hand to get you through every day. If you can restrain the urge to dwell on days past or worry too much about tomorrow, you can make the most of that day. And, yes, much of how the day is handled depends on where you’re at, but you must also remember that all you can do at any moment is your best, even if that best is not what it would be on another day. Forget about what may or may not be; it doesn’t matter. Just focus on the now.

It’s good to have a plan for the future, but not at the expense of the present moment. Besides, the future is made up of present moments, so you may want to consider this before you beam into an imagining that may never happen. As Master Yoda says in The Empire Strikes Back (my still-favourite Star Wars film), “The future is always in motion.” This makes it difficult to predict, so why waste now anticipating what isn’t assured tomorrow?

By the same token, looking back with guilt and/or regret only hinders your progress. It can even stop you from being better than your current best when it involves berating yourself for things said or unsaid, done or undone. It’s past; let it go. Forgive everyone—including yourself—involved in whatever incident still bugs you and free yourself from the video replay of what cannot be changed. If you can’t do that, and I know, it’s easier said than done, then use the past as a starting point: “From now on, I will (insert more positive perspective here).” Or, better yet, narrow it to the present moment: “Right now, I am (insert more positive perspective here).”

And if you can’t conjure a positive perspective on your own, a good default is simply “I am loved.” This is true in the past, present and future.

Some days will seem longer and others far too short. Some will go well and some will be disasters—through no fault of your own, I might add. You’re not the only one whose best is different from day to day; the kindest thing you can do is accept others as they are in any given instant, understanding that where they are may not be as obvious.

Sunrise signals a fresh start to something I hope will be wonderful. Sunset is my time to reflect on how it went before I put it (and myself) to bed. This is Ru 2018, dedicated to releasing the past, living the present moment as best I can, and trusting the future to unfold as a result.

Try it for a day. Just for today ... and watch the elephant disappear, one bite at a time.

With love,

The Best You Can Be

Could you have done more? Could you have said it differently? Been kinder? Been more generous? More forgiving? Tried harder? On another day, maybe.

Just not today.

Each day comes with a unique set of experiences and challenges, and we live each day to the best of our ability. That ability, however, is as unique as the day itself. You might think later that you didn’t do enough or say the right thing, but you did the best you could at the time.

I struggle with my shortcomings. I’m human; I have a lot of them. My intention is always to “do no harm”, but I can’t control how word or deed is received—and I admit, there are days when I don’t particularly care. On some days, I’m golden. On others, I goof up. The fact remains that, on all days, I always do the best I can.

So do you. The trick is to recognize, accept and forgive that whatever you did or didn’t do would have been done differently on another day. Let’s face it, sometimes, you just don’t feel well. You’re sick. You’re in pain. Stressed at work. Stressed at home. Sleep deprived. Over medicated. Under medicated. It’s easy to be less enthusiastic about interacting with your fellow man when you feel less divine and more human.

Tomorrow will be different and so will you. Do your best (and don’t fool yourself—you know when you’re cutting corners); that’s all the Universe asks of you because the Universe knows all you ever are is the best you can be in any given moment, period.

Behaving Badly

I’m breaking in a new boss. Six weeks in, she’s awesome and she thinks I’m awesome, but the honeymoon hit a bump this week when she called to chide me for failing to review the standards of employee conduct (I didn’t make the deadline and the system ratted me out to her). “So,” she says, “what’s that all about?”

Tongue stuck firmly in cheek, I replied, “I don’t believe in standards of conduct. People should be free to behave like screaming orange toddlers.”

Of course I was kidding. She got the joke, we had a laugh, I clicked “OK” on the standards webpage, and that was that.

Only it wasn’t. Not really. What happened to “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all”? That’s what I was taught, and though I have occasionally strayed from the principle, for the most part, I try to practice kindness, tolerance, and socially acceptable behaviour. This last quality seems to have dropped significantly in standard, but I insist on maintaining the level of manners my parents still expect of me. I also happen to know a good many kind, generous, cooperative, polite and responsible people. The world is full of like folks, in every culture, religion, and race.

I wish they got the same level of attention afforded the ranters and ravers. I support freedom of speech and the right of people to have their own opinions, but we have become so ill as a society that the sickest of us are now media heroes and world leaders. We’re a step away from televising public executions, yet we are conversely outraged at the merest whiff of a perceived insult to a stranger. I’ll leave the examining of that contradiction to Bill Maher, who is better equipped to articulate my dismay ... but I have noticed this:

Paying attention to unacceptable behaviour only encourages it. Ego loves a reaction, so aim a camera or facilitate a panel discussion on its antics, and it will ramp up the output. When I hear my voice getting louder, it’s accompanied by the anxiety of my point being negated. If that happens, egad, I might have to accept another’s view and maybe change my mind. My comfortable reality may be proven false! Worse, my value as an intelligent being may be compromised, so even if I’m wrong (especially if I’m wrong), I’d better outshout my opposition. Volume equals conviction, right? And conviction means I’m right, right?

Riiiiiight.

Let’s make good behaviour fashionable again. Do something kind for someone today. Say something nice, or say nothing at all. Take the sting out of ego’s plot to ruin the world—or at least your little corner of it.

With love,

Recognizing Divinity

One morning, I took shelter beneath an overhang while waiting for the traffic lights to change. A tall twenty-something kid with green hair and his whole life strapped to his back joined me to get out of the rain. Our eyes met.

“Hey,” he said, “how’s it going?”

“Fine,” I replied. “You?”

He made a face. “Not so good.” He began setting up shop, arranging his pack into a comfy lounge chair and pulling out a cardboard sign asking for change. “I just came from a job interview,” he went on, “but when I got there, she told me it was cancelled. Nice, eh?”

“Cancelled?” I echoed. “Not rescheduled?”

“Nope.” He sat down, clearly disgruntled, and sighed. “I got there early and she said it was cancelled. So much for that.”

I have little experience actually conversing with the sidewalk’s self-employed. This kid was clearly among them, and though I doubted he’d applied for a gig at City Hall, I was fairly sure he would have fit at the 7-Eleven, and whomever had set the interview should have honoured the appointment, especially if he indeed arrived ahead of time.

“That sucks,” I agreed. “What are you going to do now?”

He settled more comfortably into his makeshift La-Z-Boy. “I guess I’ll hang here for a while and listen to people telling me to get a job. I came out here to be with a friend, but maybe I’ll go back to Vancouver and try again there.”

“You might have better luck in a bigger city,” I said. “Victoria isn’t really a happening town.”

He gloomily concurred.

I asked if he wanted a coffee or something to ward against the chill weather. He politely refused, having had enough coffee to get a buzz going for the non-interview. “You’d think fifty people wishing you luck would have had some pull,” he said.

“I wish I’d known,” I told him. “Maybe the fifty-first would have been the difference.”

He looked briefly nonplussed, then laughed. “Yeah. Maybe.”

The light had changed more than once by now, and my own job awaited. “I can’t do anything more for you,” I said, “but at least I can give you this.” I proffered a fiver. “It might help.”

He didn’t take it, and for a second I worried that I’d offended him. Instead, he looked up at me and asked the most astonishing question.

“Are you sure?”

He had nothing. I was on my way to the bank before returning to the office, and he asks if I’m sure about giving him a paltry five dollars? I was amazed, humbled, and a little embarrassed. But I persevered.

“Of course I’m sure. At the very least, it’ll get you to the ferry, if that’s what you want to do.”

He slowly took the bill from my hand and thanked me.

I tried to shrug it off. My heart would rob me blind if I allowed it. This was a genuinely good kid and they all deserve a break. Unable to give him one, I aimed for encouragement. “That interview didn’t work out but the next one probably will. Good luck, okay?”

He smiled. I bolted for the crosswalk before I burst into tears.

I haven’t seen him since then, but I remember him whenever I’m at that corner. I wonder where he is and if his fortunes have changed. I wonder what his name is. I regret that I didn’t think to ask.

I don’t, as a rule, donate to individuals. I once joked that if I dropped a coin into every hat on a downtown block, I’d be broke by the next intersection. I have no idea why this kid touched me, except that I actually took the time to talk to him.

Dr. Wayne Dyer said in a  lecture once that you don’t have to give money to someone on the street. You can always offer a silent blessing as you pass. So nowadays, if I can, if I’m feeling brave, I will meet someone’s eyes and offer a smile in lieu of coin.

Most of the time, I get a smile back. Maybe it’s not about the money after all. Maybe it’s about one human noticing another, and recognizing the divinity in each other.

We are all connected.

With love,

Extraordinary World

You are extraordinary.

Honest.

We all are.

Sadly, most of us don’t realize it. Being unaware, however, does not change the fact that we are born from the divine and must therefore be divine at our core. It’s in our spiritual DNA.

The question du jour: How does an extraordinary being live in an ordinary world?

Well, truly, the world is as extraordinary as we are, being born of the same source energy, but we’ve lost sight of that as surely as we’ve lost sight of ourselves. But that’s another post. Today, it’s about us. You and me, the extraordinary ones living an ordinary life.

How do we do it, you ask?

Extraordinarily, of course! It’s the only way we can live, the only way we know how. Look at it this way: no one else in existence brings to the table what you bring. No one else can be you, therefore no one else can say or think or do anything the way you say or think or do it. We might share similar traits or habits or opinions, but even what’s similar must be expressed in a manner unique to the individual because the individual is unique.

That’s the divine part. How each of us is singularly capable of following the path laid before us, even if the path is identical (which I doubt it is. That no two paths are alike is as extraordinary as the people who walk them).

The late Dr. Wayne Dyer was fond of saying that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. We are foiled by the coil—mortal, that is—thrust first into a compostable container with limited faculties, then into a world of contrast designed to teach us what we must learn in order to reclaim our divinity. I wonder sometimes why I signed up for this gig, and if only I’d read the fine print on the contract, but most of  the time, I’m okay with the arrangement. I understand some of what I’m meant to be doing here, and I trust that the rest will come clear as I move along. Trust is part of being extraordinary, as are acceptance, honesty, kindness, respect, and love. As each of these qualities comes with us from before, then applying them in our daily life must by default make living that life extraordinary.

So there you go. Be extraordinary by being yourself. Recognize the divinity within you. Recognize the divinity on others, and in the world around you. Make today an extraordinary day because that’s what is it and what you are.

Honest.

With love,

Be Wonderful

The Fixx recorded a song in the 80s called “Are We Ourselves?”

The short answer? “No.”

Another quote of mysterious origin (I heard it from Don Henley, but am pretty sure it’s not actually his) is, “The older we get, the more we become like ourselves.”

Well, life is a journey, right? We spend the first part of it trying to fit in, to become who we think we must become in order to be accepted by family, peers, superiors, and society as a whole. When we become detached or, worse, isolated; when we fear that we truly are alone and unloved, when we believe ourselves to be stupid or unworthy or useless, bad things happen.

Human things.

We must remember that we are here to be human, to experience contrast, to find our way back to ourselves, and return home with a sack full of lessons learned.

Ter was recently advised by someone who doesn’t know her very well that she is “a little unapproachable.” It wasn’t an accusation; it was more an FYI in case she wasn’t aware of the aura she projects, which is one of aloof reserve. She surprised the person by replying frankly. “I know,” she said. “It’s a weakness. I don’t like it, but I’ve accepted it.” She added that she is half-Scandinavian, which truly does make a difference, but refrained from mentioning her incredible shyness. She has struggled with it for as long as I’ve known her, because it’s not who she really is and, on some level, she knows it.

She is really wonderful.

So am I.

So are you.

Every one of us is wonderful. A lot of us have fallen out of touch with that wonder, but it’s still there. Seems I’ve spent a whole lot of years discovering who I truly am, but what I’m actually doing is rediscovering myself. I’ve had to release a bunch of learned behaviours and marginal ideas, but it turns out they were only holding me back, so who needs ’em?

This doesn’t mean I’ll be rich and/or famous one day. Genuine success isn’t measured in dollars and internet “hits”. It’s in discovering your true self and in being happy with who you really are.

Scary thought, eh? Imagine, spending time alone with no social media, family, series marathons or work issues to distract you from your own company. Yikes. How do you survive face time with a stranger?

Do something nice for yourself. Take a walk along the water. Buy yourself an ice cream on a cold day. Go to a movie that you, but no one you know, wants to see. Take a bubble bath by candlelight.

Most importantly, brook no internal criticism. When that snarky inside voice starts nagging you, tell it to shut up. You’ll never convince it that it’s wrong, so it’s better to ignore it. Better yet, beat it at its own game. When it says, “You’re an idiot”, counter with “Maybe, but I am also loved.” Eventually, you will drop the “Maybe” part because you won’t believe it anymore (and it was never true in the first place).

You are unique and magical and wonderful. I know it. The Universe knows it. Deep down, you know it, too. So just sit quietly for a moment. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out in equal measure. In, out, in, out. Your mind will jitter a little, but that’s okay. Pay it no attention. Focus on this instead:

I am loved.

I am safe.

I am wonderful.

Because you are.

With love,

Love and Service

An unusual thing happened to me the other day. Riding the elevator to my office, I suddenly, gleefully, thought, I want to be evil. I wanted to be bad, mean, inconsiderate, self-absorbed, über-critical, unhelpful; in general, the direct opposite of the way I was brought up and, incidentally, against my nature.

I got to the eighth floor, put my lunch in the fridge, cleaned out the dish drainer, switched on the kettle, replenished the snack bowls, and lit up my “doctor is in” sign.

Sigh.

Life at present has gotten beyond my control. Too much is happening that affects me, yet I can do nothing but cope—and coping is getting harder by the day. I’ve been haranguing my angels and doing the self-talk, fighting the good fight, resisting the impulse to flush myself into the Vortex of Doom, and pursued the positive attitude to the ends of the earth. On the elevator that day, I admitted defeat.

And that’s okay. I can’t do it all. I can’t always be optimistic. I’m human, after all, not superhuman. It’s not my job to rejig the misaligned energy fields. All I have to do is take my hands off the wheel and be patient. Be kind with others, and with myself. Take small steps. Find joy in the present moment—or admit when joy ain’t happening. It’s okay if my outlook is bleak. It won’t stay that way. It never does. And no matter how rough my life is, someone else’s is always rougher. Knowing so does not lessen my angst, but it puts things in perspective.

So did the entry on the Zen desk calendar for my “wanna be evil” day. It’s a piece called the Bodhisatta Vows, and I like it better than I ever liked the Lord’s Prayer:

May I be a guard for those who need protection

A guide for those on the path

A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood

May I be a lamp in the darkness

A resting place for the weary

A healing medicine for all who are sick

A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles

And for the boundless multitude of living beings

May I bring sustenance and awakening

Enduring like the earth and sky

Until all beings are freed from sorrow

And all are awakened

With love,

Miniature World

People can be so tiresome. First World problems have made many of us into petty, selfish individuals whose focus extends no further than our own property line. My own excuse for such behaviour was acquired at a rock concert in 2005, when Matchbox Twenty’s frontman took his solo tour on the road and stopped in Victoria. He told a story of being picked on in high school, then of making it big and returning to his hometown. Suddenly, everyone who had taunted him as a teen was asking him for tickets to the show. He paused in the telling, then told the audience, “Sometimes, it’s okay to be small.”

That’s true. Sometimes it is. At other times, though, it’s sad evidence of how mean and spiteful humans can be.

Granted, there are always three sides to a story. Everything is subject to perspective and no one can explain another’s behaviour with any kind of accuracy unless they know that person extremely well and, even then, how can we claim to know anyone else when so few of us know ourselves? Looking in the mirror is a scary thing. A lot of us dislike what looks back. Ironically, what we dislike in ourselves is often what we judge harshly in everyone else.

We simply can’t, or won’t, admit it.

I practice tolerance every day (and some days are more successful than others). I tend to forgive everyone else for “being small” more quickly than I forgive myself, but in truth, there is no blame. People everywhere are hurting. I don’t mean there is no responsibility—ye gods, we are all responsible, but again, we can’t or won’t admit it. We may wish otherwise, but the responsibility for a better world and healthy society is not next door or down the street or on your friends/family/community/employer/government.

It’s on the face in the mirror.

Inside Voices

I have two inner voices. One is the part that came with me, the part that I’ll take with me, the part that is me. The other one is part of the software that came with my compostable container. It’s more of a tape recorder in that it plays back the memes that shaped me growing up, and it seems utterly bent on keeping me in my place.

“You’re an idiot,” it tells me.

“That won’t work.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Who are you kidding?”

“Shut up. No one cares what you think.”

It’s bossy and derisive and judgmental and relentlessly unforgiving.

It tries to deceive me into believing that it’s actually my other inside voice, the one that’s true and wise and eternal. I also think it’s getting worried. I’m learning to tell the difference, you see. In fact, I’ve recently tried a trick of my own, and while I’m hiccupping a bit, I am determined to persevere until a new, healthier habit forms.

The other day I stapled two invoices together. On discovering my error, I immediately berated myself. Moron, I thought, ripping out the staple.

Wait a second, someone else said. It was an accident and no one died. ‘Moron’ is unduly harsh.

The internal debate ensued. Well, yeah, said the first voice, but she should have known better.

Keep beating her up and she’ll keep making the same mistakes, the second pointed out.

That’s the point, really. The first voice needs me to stay stupid so it can feel needed. It doesn’t offer any brighter alternative, but it gets to keep its job. In other words, it stays relevant.

We all need that voice. It’s the voice that ensures survival at all cost, that motivates and assesses and preserves us as mortals. Unfortunately for it, the job is only temporary, so it tries to make itself more important by holding us back, by reminding us that we’re failures without it, or that we can only be successful if we heed its sage advice; advice, incidentally, which is strategically worded to keep us from trying.

I digress.

The inner dialogue is ongoing, like the ticking of a clock. Sometimes you hear it, sometimes you don’t. When I hear mine, it’s usually the aforementioned first voice and it’s almost always deriding me for something and calling me stupid into the bargain. Whoa, buddy. Catch me on a gaffe, by all means, but instead of snarling, “Idiot,” try something gentler, like, “Oh, sweetie.”

Basically, I’m watching to catch myself on the lip of an insult with the intention of changing said insult to a term of endearment. I’ve done it a couple of times—it’s actually appalling, how frequent the opportunities are—and it might just be working. In fact, the opportunities seem to be dwindling.

Ironic, isn’t it? The voice that takes such pleasure in correcting me harshly would rather be silent than be corrected itself.

Who’s the real idiot?

With love,

Kindness

How disappointing. February 8 to 14 was Random Acts of Kindness Week and I failed to see it on the calendar before the 19^th. Darn it, I missed an opportunity, perhaps countless opportunities, yea, an entire week’s worth of opportunities, to be kind.

But wait. Is kindness, like Christmas, restricted to a specific date? Maybe it should be sad that a week in February must be dedicated to a trait that is born in every human child. After all, I know lots of kind people. In fact, I know more kind people than unkind ones—and I bet everyone else, does, too.

We are told that the world is a dark and bad and scary place, and sometimes it is, but why is it that we only hear about the dark and bad and scary things? Why do we allow what we hear to colour what we see and what we feel? Why did I, on noticing that I had missed Random Acts of Kindness Week, experience a twinge of the negative by having missed my chance to be who I am by nature?

Geez, Ru. Kindness, like Christmas, can be practiced every day—and it should be. Starting with ourselves. Too few of us treat ourselves with kindness, but isn’t that the best place for us to begin? Like an artist honing his craft by painting self-portraits, the art of kindness can be mastered by starting with the face in the mirror. You don’t need a specific date on which to begin, either. You can start right now.

With love,

The Kindest Thing

Mum and Ru 2005

During a creative exercise some years ago, I was asked: “What was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?”

Gee. Kind things are done for me all the time, even when I don’t see them. A few examples popped immediately to mind, but none of them were more than moments—strangers stopping to see if I was okay after I slipped on a frosty sidewalk; friends dropping a box of non-perishable foodstuffs on our doorstep when Ter and I were broke; coffees bought or hugs exchanged or smiles offered all counted if I simply wanted to answer the question, but I thought seriously about it because the kindest thing ever suggested selecting a single item from a half-century stuffed with possibilities.

I actually came up with one. The kindest thing anyone has ever done for me?

My mother wanted me.

She didn’t just want me; she contrived to get me, and once she had me, I lacked for nothing. I wasn’t spoiled with material things, but from my first breath I was loved. In a world where children are too often born by accident or nefarious design, my mother made her kids the center of her universe. I was luckier than my sibs—I came just after my older sister began kindergarten and my parents’ best friends welcomed a newbie to their family. Timing is everything, so I scored big.

Nelson Mandela said that you can tell a lot about a society by the way it treats its children. Even in the poorest conditions, children can be loved and taught to believe in themselves. Regrettably, this is not always the case. I see the evidence in my job and in the people around me; in the adult children of women who did the best they could, but perhaps lacked the focus my mother possessed. Raising children is so hard that I’m glad I don’t have any of my own, but if I had become a mother, I hope I’d have been as wonderful to my daughter as mine has been to me.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Random Acts

What a week! Mercury is in retrograde, the full moon is looming, and Valentine’s Day urges love to conquer all. Yeeeeah—good luck with the third when the first two are in effect.

But seriously, folks, February 9 to 15 is “Random Acts of Kindness Week”. I know because the Rumi calendar in the kitchen says so, not because it’s been widely publicized. And why is that? It should be publicized. Kindness should be encouraged rather than regarded with deep suspicion. Our souls are by nature generous, compassionate and loving, inclined to kindness without prompting … yet our combined intellect has created a world of harsh planes and jagged angles, the “eat or be eaten” culture of status and greed and aggression.

If only we weren’t so darned intelligent.

Recently, I saw a documentary called “I Am”, the story of a successful Hollywood director who sustained a critical injury that started him on a journey to learn what the world is all about. I’m giving you a crummy Coles Notes summary; the show should be required viewing in high school and college classes throughout the western world, then shown with subtitles everywhere else. I loved it. One scene in particular inspired me, and if I had the courage, I’d re-enact it at the inner harbour or at the mall.

This pilgrim in pursuit of his true self made up a sign and offered free hugs to anyone who wanted one. People were practically lining up, laughing and blushing and crying over something as simple and loving as the human touch. Wow. Imagine how much happier we’d all be if we were hugged more often. I’ve heard that three hugs a day is the minimum to maintain a healthy self-esteem. Many of us don’t see three hugs in a week.

I love hugs. I happily give big, double-clutching, full frontal body hugs on request. But could I offer them to strangers? What if I offered and nobody accepted? I could do it in a group, for sure. But on my own? Nice idea, Ru. Let’s just keep it that way.

Still, kindness needn’t be a contact sport. It needn’t even go beyond home, beyond yourself. Seek opportunities to be kind—to friends, co-workers, family, the Bucky’s barista or the kid corralled in a shopping cart. Heck, be kind to yourself. You’ll find it spreads pretty quickly.