March 7--Commitment

You have to pick the places you don't walk away from.  --Joan Didion

    "Commitment" can be a scary word. It conjures sticking with something enough to be accountable, a word that gives me the creepy-crawlies. I can certainly do "accountable," but I'm usually inclined to walk away at first. 

    What have I stuck with in my life? College, getting both B.S. and M.B.A. degrees. Marriage, 34 years and counting. Motherhood, 33 years and counting. 12-Step program, 33 years and counting. Tax prep work, doing my sixth year. Yoga teaching, nine years and counting. Coaching, going on 13 years. We've lived in the same home in Wichita for 36 years. I've been a regular lap-swimmer and golfer for decades. All these have been and continue to be blessings in my life. 

    What have I walked away from? My childhood home in Pennsylvania. Corporate technology work. My older brother Ken. Relationships wherein I was giving more than I was receiving. Addiction. The internal pressure of "you should do more." 

    We make choices. They are not always conscious, but we do make them. Walking away can prove to be a good thing or a bad thing. Fortunately, we can always make a different choice. 

        Leta

 

March 6--How DO We Do It?

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. 
--Prince

    I've been pondering this one for a few hours. Let's look at "this thing called life." We come here, pure spiritual beings squeezed into a helpless body, which is then squeezed through a small opening in Mom, and we are thrust into a completely foreign world. We have no means of getting our needs met other than by making a lot of noise or being very cute. We have to figure out and teach ourselves how to get around like the giants around us. Our muscles and bones are not yet sturdy enough to support us. People around us are making assorted noises that we need to learn to decipher as speech. It's a great thing that we are like little sponges who learn quickly. All that is just the first few months!

    We have to learn to feed ourselves, use that weird contraption with water in it where we are supposed to pee and poop, share (dang it!), and recognize that there are others like us here. After a few short years to adapt, they send us off to school with others our age, and a whole 'nother set of learning starts. Meanwhile, we become aware of our peers and learn about friendship, bullying, what's cool, what's not cool, and we start to wonder how we fit into "this thing called life." 

    It doesn't get much easier. We have to support ourselves, so we get jobs, maybe get married and have a family, take on all sorts of adult responsibilities. Raising children is an extraordinary blessing and challenge at the same time. If we do a good job, they move out of the house and create successful lives on their own. Then we are empty-nesters, in a whole new realm of figuring out what to do with ourselves. Eventually, if we are "fortunate," we age, and as so many have said, getting old is not for sissies. 

    How can we possibly get through all this???!?! It is in the remembering that we are "dearly beloved." 

    So grateful for "this thing called life,"

        Leta

March 5--Let's Move On

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping-stone. Close the door on the past. 
--Johnny Cash

    There is a trap in life that has caught me repeatedly. Some effort of mine has failed, according to my thinking, and the resulting disappointment causes me to go into a phase of "why bother?" Fortunately, I recognized this pattern, the first step in eliminating it, but escaping it has been an ongoing practice. It can be a real challenge to close that door Mr. Cash mentions. 

    It is much more helpful to see a "failure" simply as an option that didn't work. OK, that didn't work, what can I do differently to get more satisfying results? It is a constant practice of looking forward rather than behind. Depending on infinite potential rather than disappointment is the way to thrive in life.

     Leta

March 4--Your Work Matters

Nothing will work unless you do.  --Maya Angelou

    Imagination is a wonderful thing, but once the ideas have formed well, we have to do something, some footwork or baby steps, to make the ideas work. One doesn't have to live very long on planet Earth to realize that riches don't just drop from the sky with no effort. Everything worth having is worth some effort. 

    Each of us plays a part in how the world works. I think gratefully this morning of the folks who keep our sewer and trash pickup systems going. This may not be a common item on your gratitude list, but life would be quite unpleasant if these systems failed or didn't exist. The same is true for farmers, delivery systems and manufacturing. Our world works because we do. 

    Thank you for doing your work, whatever it may be!

        Leta

March 3--Bias Traps Us

If you can learn from hard knocks, you can also learn from soft touches. 
--Carolyn Kenmore

    Recognizing our biases is a key ingredient to learning. I offer these words by Brian McLaren, a teacher from the Center for Action and Contemplation, who has identified 13 biases that make us see things so differently from one another:

People can't see what they can’t see. Their biases get in the way, surrounding them like a high wall, trapping them in ignorance, deception, and illusion. No amount of reasoning and argument will get through to them, unless we first learn how to break down the walls of bias. 

Confirmation Bias: We judge new ideas based on the ease with which they fit in with and confirm the only standard we have: old ideas, old information, and trusted authorities. As a result, our framing story, belief system, or paradigm excludes whatever doesn’t fit.

Complexity Bias: Our brains prefer a simple falsehood to a complex truth.

Community Bias: It’s almost impossible to see what our community doesn’t, can’t, or won’t see.

Complementarity Bias: If you are hostile to my ideas, I’ll be hostile to yours. If you are curious and respectful toward my ideas, I’ll respond in kind.

Competency Bias: We don’t know how much (or little) we know because we don’t know how much (or little) others know. In other words, incompetent people assume that most other people are about as incompetent as they are. As a result, they underestimate their [own] incompetence, and consider themselves at least of average competence.

Consciousness Bias: Some things simply can’t be seen from where I am right now. But if I keep growing, maturing, and developing, someday I will be able to see what is now inaccessible to me.

Comfort or Complacency Bias: I prefer not to have my comfort disturbed.

Conservative/Liberal Bias: I lean toward nurturing fairness and kindness, or towards strictly enforcing purity, loyalty, liberty, and authority, as an expression of my political identity.

Confidence Bias: I am attracted to confidence, even if it is false. I often prefer the bold lie to the hesitant truth.

Catastrophe or Normalcy Bias: I remember dramatic catastrophes but don’t notice gradual decline (or improvement).

Contact Bias: When I don’t have intense and sustained personal contact with “the other,” my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged.

Cash Bias: It’s hard for me to see something when my way of making a living requires me not to see it.

Conspiracy Bias: Under stress or shame, our brains are attracted to stories that relieve us, exonerate us, or portray us as innocent victims of malicious conspirators.

    Let us consider these in ourselves, and how we might move beyond our biases to a more unified humanity. 
        Leta

March 2--Infinite Potential

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. The potential for greatness lives within each of us.  --Wilma Rudolph

    We would not have all the technological wonder we enjoy today if the power of dreams was not a key ingredient in creation, along with the perseverance of the human spirit. I'm so grateful for every dreamer that stuck with it, because I have transportation that takes me to work and around the world. I have instant connection with folks on the other side of the planet. I have a comfortable, safe, warm/cool home. I have convenient means to store and prepare good food. With the flick of a switch, I have light. Art in its many forms energizes my human spirit and reminds me of the greatness within each of us. 

    Dream on,

        Leta

March 1--New Month for Resilence

Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in good spirits.  --Robert Louis Stevenson

    I must say a personal "Hallelujah!!!!" that February has past. It's my least favorite month, and I'm convinced that it is the longest month of the year. 😉😉 The theme in "Daily Peace" for March is resilience.
    Resilience is defined as "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change." If you have lived through the past year, you are resilient. Resilience is a very personal thing, and its strength and pace are unique to each individual. We recover or adjust differently depending on the inciting event. Grieving the loss of a loved one, for example, requires much more resilience than a broken appliance.
    Back to the Stevenson quote... I would simply offer that if we have continued to fail in good spirits, we have actually succeeded in life!
    Be in good spirits this Monday--spring IS coming!
        Leta