Springtime Reflection

Each day I take a short walk from my office at work.  There is a green residential neighborhood behind my office building, and I routinely do a similar route.  I walk past a community garden, across from an elementary school, down a quiet street and back.  At the moment, it is providing joyful evidence of the presence of spring.  Near the far end of the walk is a bush, that for the last week has been leaved in the most vibrant shade of yellow I've ever seen.

I use these walks for contemplation.  My intention is typically to slow down and observe, but more often than not I crank through thought at an astonishing pace.  Occasionally I remind myself to notice my surroundings and to pay attention.  The magnificent yellow bush, for the last week, has served as a potent environmental cue to tune in.  For the few paces in which I pass by, I am aware of only the spendid yellow leaves.

I am accustomed to setting my own pace.  If I want to go fast, I go fast.  This is most of the time.  When I have the discipline and inclination, I slow down.  This is far rarer. 

As I reached the parking lot for my office today, by the back entrance were an elderly couple.  I share an office complex with numerous medical providers, including a physical therapist's office.  The man was clearly a patient there.  His gait was slow and halting.  He could only step forward with his right foot, then wait for his left to catch up. 

His wife stood by, with her hands in her jacket pocket.  Although I could see in her face and her posture an intense desire to help, she stood by, refusing to age for her partner.  She could have taken his arm, she could have been his left leg.  At the pace they were going, it probably took five minutes to walk the thirty feet to their car, a distance I covered in fifteen strides and a few seconds.

I was reminded of an interview I heard on Fresh Air a few years ago with Dr. Ellen Langer, a Harvand psychologist and aging research.  The gist of the interview, as I remember it from long ago, was that aging is heavily influenced by our attitudes about it and the habitual behaviors in which we engage.  If his wife had indicated to him that he needed to be helped, and if he would have acquiesced to his limitation, he likely would age much more quickly.  Her patient presence and hands-off support allowed him to continue to grow and develop.

Hope and possibility aren't states of mind or fleeting feelings, they are actions.  Sometimes they don't come cheap.  They may require slowing down, paying attention and accepting things as they are.  Within that presence of mind lies the possibility for things we don't know- or at least chance to experience a moment in this world.

Gut Check

So much for that Tues/Friday blogging schedule, eh?

I'm still committed to it, despite the fact that some nasty gut bacteria and/or pesticide invaded my intestines over the last week.  Not to over-share any details, as I'm sure you can imagine what "gut parasite" might amount to, but suffice it to say I've had a heavy dose of suffering, and of uncertainty.

Yesterday, after a few days of intestinal misery, I started to falter emotionally.  The question of WHAT THE HELL! could possibly be wrong with me began to loom very large, and I managed to think myself into some pretty dark places.  I lost any real sense of perspective, and devolved into incredibly implausible worst-case scenarios that ended in pain, suffering and death.

I'm generally not a hypochondriac, but five days on a toilet will do that to a guy.

As I have mentioned before, I'm a father of two.  And in the midst of my perspective-less sufferfest, I was filled with a nearly unbearable sadness as I held them.  I couldn't imagine not being there for them, to not be able to support them and love them through their growth and development into full-fledged adult humans.  I was in a hole, because the more I tried to convince myself that of course I am being rediculous and overreacting, the more I was confronted with the reality that of course I am not in any way guaranteed to see them into adulthood.  That simply is not how life works.  So the sadness, although triggered by a physical health problem that is likely fleeting and not dangerous (I'm feeling much better, thanks), touched into the real, non-negotiable pain of being human, and being finite.

At any rate, coming face to face with your own mortality is a pretty sobering experience.  And, while painful, when the smoke began to clear last night, I was able to note a few interesting insights.

Of greatest interest was a strong experience of the following sentiment: It is not about me.

The sadness I felt wasn't about my fear of being no longer a part of the world.  It was most poignantly about not being there for my boys.  It was about their experience of having or not having a father, not about my experience of being a father.

This makes a tremendous difference.  Being a good dad is not important as an identity, or as some sort of moral or ethical imperative.  Because I dearly love my children, I behave in ways that are consistent with their needs.  Now, the result of this is that I think that I am, in fact, an excellent father to my boys.  It brings to mind a passage from Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
      for a thousand miles, repenting
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
     Love what it loves

Loving comes first, being good follows.

I also reflected on other areas of my life in which I don't feel nearly the sense of clarity that I do around parenting.  My livelihood immediately sprung to mind.

I don't have the sort of clarity in my work life that I do at home.  I am interested in a great many things, and have engaged with my work deeply and with commitment.  But at the end of the day, I can't honestly say I can answer the million dollar question regarding my professional life:

What do you wish for your life to be about?

I find that there are lots of things I care about; helping people realize their path, the environment, health.  But too often I find myself trying to be good at things, about trying to leave my mark, making my contribution.

I'm right there in the middle.

I could take a page from my parenting playbook here, and recognize this essential truth:

It isn't about me.

I have my moments: when I am doing a group, coaching or counseling, I dissolve into the background a bit.  But other aspects of my work seem stickier, and trying to create the overall arc of my career seems especially frought with ego-bound rigidity.  This blog, in keeping with my initial commitments to openness, will be a place in which I explore how to get out of my own way and allow for my contribution to emerge, rather that fit myself into an idea about how a "good" professional should behave. 

I hope you can learn a bit about your journey and your own stuck points as we go.