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Max’s Mad Lib
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. — Max Ehrmann, The Desiderata I have to admit, when I first read this sentence, I wasn’t really feeling it. Should we be enjoying our achievements more? Or our plans? Or is it the achievements for which we have planned? Or the plans that we’ve achieved? Max, Max, Max…what are you saying?!? Given his litany of directives about how to engage the world around us, I was a little surprised at the brevity of this installment’s statement. (The next sentence in the Desiderata may hint that he’s talking about vocation here, but that sentence actually stands alone as a fuller idea.) So,…
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All Beings Being Equal
+ If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater or lesser persons than yourself. — Max Ehrmann, The Desiderata To heed Ehrmann’s warning, let’s begin with a definition. Compare – verb 1. To examine (two or more objects, ideas, people, etc.) in order to note similarities and differences. Comparing does two things that run counter to deep connectedness and community. First, by definition, comparing ourselves to another separates us (i.e. we cannot compare a thing or person to itself.) Second, because comparing objectifies us and others, it’s inherently dehumanizing. We become the objects, figuratively speaking, of comparison. There is a…
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Fill the Pot
After the first of the year, it seemed that all water cooler conversations sunk into frustrations about having fallen away from routines. In truth, the lament isn’t actually the absence of a routine. It’s that we traded a habit of self-care for something else. It’s free weights swapped for flannel pajamas, cardio for hot cocoa, and regular rest for movie marathons. Any time we say we are out of our routine, what we are really saying is that we have let go some element of self-care that we had previously committed to. Regrettably, resuming a routine of self-care is always more difficult than moving away from it. (How is that…
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Taking Good Care
The change in the seasons has ushered in a round of colds in our house. Oddly, this time I started it. Patient zero. So begins all the things we do to take extra good care of ourselves…better sleep, healthier foods, and an abundance of vitamin C. The irony, of course, is that if I had been doing those things all along, I might not have gotten a cold in the first place, or in the very least, it wouldn’t have been as bad. Taking care of ourselves strengthens our immune systems. The same holds true for our emotional and spiritual selves. The principle of self-care building immunity transcends our physical wellbeing.…
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Being There
What does it mean to be there? In the last month, I’ve attended two funerals and officiated a wedding. To attend: to pay attention; listen or watch attentively; to direct one’s thoughts; to be present and ready to give service. Within each definition, there is an implied choice. When we choose to be there–to attend, we are choosing to give someone our time. It’s a bit staggering to think about time as an asset when you consider how nonchalantly we squander it surfing , scrolling, and devoting hours to Candy Crush. Time may be our only innate and yet fully transferable asset. A friend shared recently that he’d chosen to pass on…
