By Rick Fullerton | Bio
I
am waiting for our third grandchild to be born. In fact, everyone in
our family and circle of friends is primed for the big event—but none
more so than the mother and father to be. Their lives are about to be
totally transformed when their love, commitment and belief in the
future is expressed in the arrival of ‘baby’.
Birth, for most
people, is the ultimate miracle of life. So it is natural that birth is
celebrated universally as an act of creation.
I heard someone remark that the best thing about getting older is they don’t have to be afraid anymore. While I think that is one of life’s ‘truisms’, it falls into the same category as your mother telling you “not to worry”—it doesn’t help much to know that when you are worried! From what I can see, most people get more fearful and anxious as they age. This anxiety takes various forms: fear of not having enough money, fear of being homeless, fear of being alone, fear of becoming
I heard a friend saying that they were ‘over committed’. I got to thinking that this is a common notion and one that we rarely question. Is it possible to over commit? I can understand being busy. I can understand not being competent to fulfill a commitment. I can even imagine that I have made commitments that seem to conflict, although other than being able to be in two places at the same time, most of the conflict is in how I am thinking about it.
One of
By Rick Fullerton | Bio
On reflection, I see several factors that contribute to this expanding range of interests:
So
for me (as for others), life occurs as this continuing stream of
experiences where we respond to what shows up for us and what interests
us moment to moment within the structures we find ourselves. The
challenge, it seems, is to gain a different perspective and
relationship with what’s happening.
To complicate things
further, along with the barrage of information and options
By Shae Hadden | Bio
It might be said that existence isn’t possible without both pleasant and unpleasant experiences—without pain and pleasure. They are like a guidance system, helping us navigate through life and orienting us away from illness and danger and death.We have pleasant, positive
emotional states like love, joy, sympathy, affection, self-confidence,
happiness. And we have unpleasant emotions like boredom, loneliness,
jealousy, fear and sadness.
I’ve been relating to the physical
pain I’m experiencing since my car accident as a source of learning.
I’m actually living ‘in joy’ with it —you might say ‘enjoying’ the fact
of being alive and being in pain. Many people I share this with seem
surprised,
I was playing a trivia game and had to answer what the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are. I got three out of four, but had to go to go to Wikipedia to get them all — War, Famine, Conquest and Death. These traditional Biblical symbols mark the ‘end of time’, when all things are put right and presumably all karma is erased and this journey will be complete. In researching each of them, I learned that ‘conquest’ is best translated in today’s language as ‘corruption’. The ancient
If I could give one gift to my children, I think it would be “acceptance”. It isn’t too hard to understand intellectually that we should simply accept life on life’s terms and not try to control what we can’t really control. Yet, it’s a hard lesson to learn. I think not accepting may be the source of most, if not all, suffering. When we live with the view that reality ‘should be’ other than it is, we are living in a dream (at best) and a state of self-deception and denial (at worst).
The Christmas season is behind us and everyone is heading back to work. For many (including the self-employed), this has been a two or three-week holiday from before Christmas until the Monday following New Year’s Day. It isn’t always easy to get refocused and get back into gear. Nonetheless, inspired with new (or old) resolutions, I join the millions who are now focusing on what lies ahead.
I predict that 2008 will be the Year of the Optimist. I don’t know why. Not much has changed in the
Tom Brokaw in a recent AARP op-ed piece pointed to the obvious fact that as the Boomers retire they’re going to change our social and economic reality in profound ways. Lots of others are predicting the coming crunch associated with questions of how to pay astronomical healthcare and Social Security costs with a shrinking workforce and tax base. Consider that about 4 or 5 of us have supported
I have been a bit ambivalent about ‘Christmas Letters’. They seem to have caught on and now I get a few dozen long ones each year. I appreciate the time that goes into writing them and I am glad to get some sense of what is happening in the lives of far-away friends. However, I must confess I’m a ‘scanner’ and that I don’t give them the time or reflection they deserve.
In some ways, Christmas letters remind me of all my failed intentions to stay in touch with people during the year.