The Day to Day Thing

 

JOURNAL

The Day to Day Thing

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

“I just try to live every day as if I deliberately came back to this one day.  To enjoy it as if it was the full, final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.  We’re all traveling through time together every day of our lives.  All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.”  A few years ago I quoted these words from director/writer, Richard Curtis’s wonderful and idealized film – About Time.  I love this story about a young man who discovers that he can go back in time in his life to “get it right”.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful! 

I always feel lighter when I watch this film.  There are so many things I wish I would have done but didn’t.  So many times I wish I would have done it differently.  Probably everyone thinks about that at times.  Michelle Obama says in her newest book, The Light We Carry, that her mother Marian Robinson used to tell her & her brother when they were just children that no matter what happened in the world to them as black kids growing up on Chicago’s south side “We will always like you here.” - meaning at home. 

Mama Robinson didn’t coddle her kids.  She gave them alarm clocks when they entered kindergarten and they had to get themselves up, make their beds and get ready for school.  Michelle says she learned young how to take responsibility for her life, and also that she was loved unconditionally.  Mama never criticized.  She’d listen, love, let them learn about life.  Learn from their teachers and get past personalities. She was also ready to go to bat for her kids if they needed it, but they learned to figure it out themselves most of the time.

I have to admit that these days I have trouble sometimes getting past personalities and the “stuff” that some people do - unkindness, fear-mongering, lack of any real empathy for others, including animals and the Earth itself.  Just gets me riled up, and I know that’s not healthy for me.

I remember a mediation that my late dear friend, Sally Gearhart, told me about. She would imagine herself as a great sail in the wind.  She’d let the wind blow through her sail-self and blow away all of life’s debris.  Just let it blow until the debris, the unwanted hurtful stuff was blown away – gone.  I love that image and that meditation.  I use it more often these days.  It helps.  Thanks for leaving that gift with me Sally!

Life has its struggles.  We all know that.  We all struggle with “stuff” sometimes.  The stuff is one way we grow, how we learn to survive and get stronger.  Also, how we empathize with what others may be going through and help out if we can.  It’s not always easy, especially with people who are close like family, spouses sometimes, friends.  Yet we do it when we can because we care.  Most of us care anyway.

That doesn’t mean one has to put up with everything someone may throw at you, especially abuse.  Sometimes it’s best to just distance from someone.  Some people are not a good match for one’s life.  It’s best to let their stuff be carried away with the wind.  Sometimes things change and a relationship comes back into one’s life, perhaps a little differently than before.  We all grow and change. 

Like the guy in About Time, we can sometimes get it right.  Not by going back in time, but by seeing things differently, more understanding, kindness – and the really difficult “unconditional love”. Of course sometimes distance is really the correct solution.  Change is the only constant, ironic as that may seem.   

In 2001, Harriet B. Braiker Ph.D., wrote a book that became a New York Times Bestseller called The Disease to Please – Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome.  Apparently a lot of people could relate.  She notes that pleasers “… will rarely if ever feel satisfied with the job you are doing.  You continually expand the circle of others whose needs you try to meet.  The pressure this produces and the inevitable drain on your energy create profound feelings of guilt and inadequacy that you will attempt to repress by trying harder to please even more.” Ugh!

 

Social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, in his fascinating book The Righteous Mind – Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, claims that genetic research has actually found genetic differences that predispose people to be more on the “conservative” or “liberal” spectrum.  He likens these two to the Asian concept of Yin and Yang – opposites that together create a complete whole. 

The motto of the United States of America is E pluribus unum – Latin for "Out of many, one".  We’ve often heard that it’s our differences that make the U.S. stronger; many different points of view, different races, the diversity of philosophies, religions or lack of religion – the “separation of church and state”.  Haidt generally defines Liberalism - caring about care, liberty & fairness.  Conservatism - caring more about loyalty, authority & sanctity.  He suggests that these work together to create the ideal of “out of many, one”. 

Where current U.S. politics has, in part, lost its way is extreme and intractable positions taken by inflexible narcissistic elements of both philosophies.  We are sometimes seeing in our society, pathologies such as psychopaths and sociopaths.  www.verywellhealth.com defines psychopath as “someone who has emotional deficits, chief among them being a lack of remorse… or inflicting pain on others” perhaps a genetic sickness; whereas a sociopath is defined as” they are antisocial and violate rules” in a way that intentionally hurts others, often learned behavior from the environment they have experienced – but a choice. 

Excluding the above mentioned unhealthy behaviors, “liberals” and “conservatives” can choose to work together finding common ground to create a stronger society.  This goes for day-to-day social interactions of people, local governments, national politics and the choices that voters make.  Diversity is a characteristic of nature, therefore of humankind.  “Moderates” tend to look for mutually beneficial common-ground solutions. 

Now, why might one choose to “deliberately came back to this one day” as a time, place and circumstance to “relish this remarkable ride”?  I posit that to do that one might have to essentially exclude much of what goes on in the lives of almost everyone in the world and politics – even the frequent brutality of Nature itself – and focus on one’s ability to live their individual life moment-to-moment always choosing the thought that feels better; appreciate and be grateful for what one has here and now on a very personal level, without causing harm to others or one’s self.  Hummm. 

As Hamlet says “'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd”.  Would I, or anyone, truly be grateful for each and every day in my / their life?  Buddhist philosophy contends that suffering is inevitable and even good in that one learns from it and in a sense purges one’s soul.  Can most of us truly appreciate the suffering along with the pleasure of life?  Of course Curtis says “I just try to live every day as if…”  Yes, it’s possible to try - usually. 

Being “happy” in normal circumstances is a choice.  Most of us choose where to live and actually settle based, at least in part, on the issues I’ve discussed.  Health, housing, work, economics, location, friends and family also figure into our choices.  ” We’re all traveling through time together every day of our lives.”  Together being the operative word.  That’s important for healthy Community and “home”.