Walking Each Other Home

 

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

“I used to take care of my daughter, now my daughter takes care of me.”

A dear, old friend used to say that to me often during the eight or so years I had the privilege of knowing her. For as long as I knew her, she had short-term memory problems. She preferred watching familiar shows like the Andy Griffith Show over anything modern, and she never met a cookie she didn’t like.

She passed away recently at the age of 96. Until only a few months prior to her passing, her health was good enough that she would get out and interact with people, even if she couldn’t remember who people were.

Sadness always accompanies death, but when someone lives such a long life, funerals are more a celebration of life and time to catch up with people you haven’t seen in a long time than a time to mourn.

My friend was born in 1927. She worked as a secretary to 14 different commanding officers at the Tooele¹ Army Depot. She also loved volunteering and spent years serving on the board of the Tooele Nursing Home. She often took her daughters with her. I’ve had the great pleasure of knowing one of her daughters for more than 20 years and am eyewitness to the goodness that my dear friend instilled in her children. I didn’t know my friend during her healthiest years, but I am sure her daughter’s tireless service to others is a reflection of her mother.

There’s nothing unique or original to the notion that we all come into this world completely helpless. When our time comes to die, there’s nothing a person can do to will themselves to continue living forever. While death is harder to accept than birth, in the balance they are the inseparable bookends of mortality, and it’s what happens between those bookends that really matters.

Across the world, but especially in Western society, there’s an overwhelming pressure to monetize the time we have. Even for people who have jobs where they make gobs of money, there’s this idea that if you have time available, it should be used to generate alternate sources of income for the sake of financial independence or security.

While it’s true that having enough money in the right kinds of investment vehicles can help prevent financial hardship, a poignant reminder from every deceased billionaire is that even having more money than you could ever spend can’t buy immortality (yet).

I’m a believer that work is a virtuous thing. I think our current structure puts way too much value on certain jobs and not nearly enough value on others, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Regardless of the vocation, it’s often the case that our excess daily work activities get in the way of nurturing relationships with family, friends, and others in our circle of influence.

Most of us are aware that one of the greatest death-bed regrets is that of working too much and spending too little time with people they loved. Paradoxically, we fall into the same trap anyway.

Get up → Work to hard → Consume too much → Repeat.

The antidote to this problem lives in a simple metaphor on the things that matter most in life attributed to Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert) who was a spiritual leader who taught on mindfulness and personal growth.

“We are all just walking each other home.”

We all know that life is a journey filled with joyful twists and painful turns. We stumble and fall. We get up and try again. We triumph. We mourn. Through it all, we are almost never alone. We often walk beside — sometimes hand in hand — people who lift us up, who share our burdens, and who illuminate the path when it seems too dark to see on our own.

When you stop to think about it, there’s something profound about the impact we have on each other, for good and bad.

In the end, when we reach our final destination, we realize that the beauty of life is in the journey we shared, the love we gave, and the lives we touched. Life culminates in a celebration of the experiences we’ve had, and the way in which we’ve touched each other’s lives for good.

¹ I’m not sure English pronunciation guides can explain this one. That word is pronounced two ill uh. It may have origins in a Goshute word meaning “bear.”

The Things We Cherish

 

A picture of my childhood “keepsakes” box

At some point in my early childhood, I acquired the cube-shaped, green box shown above. It was probably designed to hold 3 x 5 cards or pictures. I stored a number of pictures in that box for years. The box is no more than five and one half inches square and perhaps four inches deep; just big enough for a collection of old photos.

For me, that box became the repository for an odd assortment of things I collected up until I moved from my childhood home (some of them pictured above): a small shovel given as a memento of a groundbreaking ceremony I attended, I small bag of shredded money that I got on a school field trip which I split with a friend, a piece of rock labeled as part of the London Bridge (which probably wasn’t from the London Bridge), a membership card in a club I created with my best friend when we were in the 7th grade, a letter from that same friend sent when he was living in Spain. (Incidentally, he’s still one of my best friends.)

I don’t generally attach a lot of sentiment to things and rarely do I struggle with the decision to throw something away or donate it to a thrift store. That little box, however, that’s been with me for as long as I can remember, somehow holds a lot of sentimental value.

That little bit of “London Bridge” rock was given to me by my paternal grandfather, Grandpa Tom, for one of my birthdays most likely before I turned 10. I’m not sure which one. He passed away in 2011 at what seemed a young 83 years old. He’s a man I admired so much. From the stories my dad’s told me, I think he was somewhat austere when his children were still at home, but as a grandfather, he was a kind, loving, patient man full of wisdom and a love for puzzles. I learned to love reading, puzzles, and chess as I spent time with him.

I had the privilege of living with my paternal grandparents for a time while I was working on my university degree. What a choice season of my life that was!

It’s been a long time since I’ve pulled that bit of rock out of the keepsake box. Just holding it in my hand conjured so many fond memories of time with my grandparents.

Therein lies the reason so many people choose (or perhaps struggle) to let go of things.

We hold onto things because we cannot reconcile the passage of time, the evanescence of memories, and the inevitability of change. In these physical remnants of our past, we find solace — a tangible connection to what once was, a testament to the enduring power of memory. Each object carries with it a story, a fragment of our personal history, and letting go means relinquishing a part of ourselves. So we cling to them, hoping to preserve not just the things, but the emotions, the moments, the essence of who we once were. — Attributed to Haruki Murakami

Holding too tightly to things of the past can make it hard (impossible, even) for us to progress. Yearning for the past becomes dangerous to our mental and emotional wellbeing when we spent too much time either caught up in what was or fixated on what might be. Intuitively, I think most people understand that the present is all we have. We can’t go back and relive the past or change it. Nor can we arrive in the future any faster than the hands of time allow.

In contrast, cherishing (keeping with care and affection) is an attribute that can be present at all times. We can cherish the past, present, and future without needlessly attempting to live outside the present moment.

It’s okay to hold onto things; to cherish things. The small baubles in that box, even though they hold no monetary value — or perhaps because they hold no monetary value, are important to me. Sometimes, holding onto things from the past can be a source of connection to our past; a source of comfort. They remind us of who we are, when we come from, and may just inform where we’re going.

The Convergence of Growth and Comfort

For many people, the picture above likely conjures thoughts of an idyllic vacation: white, sandy beaches; azure water; a light breeze; drinks by the ocean.

Perfection. Right?

While I haven’t been to a lot of places like the one pictured above, I do enjoy those types of places when I’m with others.

I’ve never been on a solo vacation, but if I ever went I would likely go no farther than my local library. I would spend the week savoring as many books as I could with the occasional nap in between.

No plane ticket or sand required.

A lot of growth can come from internalizing what we read then putting it into practice. For people who love to read, there’s no discomfort there.

• Grab a book.
• Settle in.
• Read.
• Learn and grow.

There are two commonly parroted ideas that have gained a lot of prevalence in the last few decades but that have never really served the greater good:

1. The only time you grow is when you’re uncomfortable.
2. Humans seek comfort at all costs.

The first one is often either accompanied by a story about someone achieving greatness by working tirelessly at the expense of everything else some story about building muscle as though everything in life can be reduced to a good session at the gym.

The second one is typically couched in a statement like the following from Scott Trettenero: “If we weren’t wired with our affinity for comfort, our possibilities for a better life and world would be unfathomable.”

Hyperbole much?

Tying both #1 and #2 together, my new personal “favorite” quote comes from Luay Rahil:

Most people sacrifice their potential to avoid painful moments, leading to failure. They forget that growth and comfort don’t coexist.

“Growth and comfort don’t coexist.”

Um. What?

The Whispers of Gratitude

 I sat on the floor for 30 minutes, trying to convince myself to go for a run.

I typed out a text to my running group, letting them know I would see them in a week. . .or a month.

My finger hovered over the send button for a few seconds before I erased the text and suited up.

I spent most of the time on the run complaining about how hard things have been in my day job. 

• Too much work to do.
• Inadequate human resources to get the work done.
• Inadequate systems to streamline the work.
• Inferior components requiring too much rework and re-engineering.
• Etc.

I came home from that run to a text message from my boss saying that an operations manager we’ve been recruiting for several weeks accepted our offer last night. In the short run, that means more work for me as I train him, but in the long run he’s going to make my life much easier.

Have you ever stopped to consider why complaints seem to echo loud and long while gratitude comes in whispers?

There are a number of factors that impact why this seems to hold true for so many. Here’s a quick list of three common factors:

1. Negativity Bias: Are humans wired to be more negative? Negative experiences tend to weigh heavier than positive ones which is why it seems we lean more toward being negative.
2. Emotional Intensity: Emotions such as anger, disappointment, and frustration often carry more emotional intensity than emotions like happiness and gratitude. That makes experiences accompanied by more intense emotions show up a lot more readily when we’re recounting experiences.
3. Coping Mechanism: Complaining is a coping mechanism. Rather than deal with difficult emotions, we try to cope with them, often by expressing our anger, disappointment, or frustration with someone not related to the difficulty we’re experiencing. Sometimes, a venting session can help us move beyond a trivial experience without having to address it with related parties. Often, however, these coping mechanisms are a way of avoiding dealing with something that merits resolution.

While perhaps less natural for many of us (it certainly is for me), there is perhaps no more fitting way to increase happiness than expressing gratitude. As one unknown author put it, “It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” 

Taking time to acknowledge the good, even when it might be buried in a difficult situation, opens the door to more goodness. Our minds are primed to see the things we focus on. If you’re shopping for a new vehicle and have a particular make and model in mind, you’ll begin to see it “everywhere”. The same is true of gratitude. The more gratitude you express, the easier it will become to find gratitude in more experiences and areas of your life.

While expressing gratitude for the obvious things is great, the practice of gratitude requires the development of a mindset that sees things you might otherwise miss; a bit like finding beauty among thorns. Let’s call that deep gratitude.

There are two fundamentals of practicing deep gratitude:

1. Be intentional. To begin practicing an “attitude of gratitude,” take a few moments each day and just observe. Focus on just one interaction that’s not quite so obvious for which you are grateful. Don’t give up after ten or fifteen seconds of contemplation. If after a minute or two nothing comes to mind, pick an interaction that’s a bit more obvious. Consciously review the reason (or reasons) why you have gratitude for the people involved or the experience you had. 
2. Be consistent. This is where I struggle the most. I can practice intentional gratitude for a day or two then get distracted by a difficult experience that tends to play on repeat in my mind. Fight the rumination by expressing gratitude. Constantly coming back to gratitude will make it easier to move away from rumination to meaningful growth from experiences.

The author of Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne, noted, “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

Our hearts are several times the size of Piglet’s, so there’s little cardiac risk involved in expressing gratitude, even when it seems your heart might burst.

Go ahead. Give it a try. Piglet might just be right.