learning to be happy

The Ultimate Virtue

/ James Browning

11b

Wanting to love someone is not the same as loving someone.
Knowledge of how to build something will not build anything.
Needing to get in better shape does not make me healthier.
Aspiring to make a difference does not make a difference.
Wishing to be kinder does not make me more kind.
Knowing what is right is not doing what is right.
Realizing what I should do is not the doing of it.
Craving a relationship does not put me in one.
Desiring to apologize is not an apology.
Yearning to finish a book is not writing.
Wanting to travel is not traveling.
Longing for love is not love.

Knowing is a small thing.
Using what I know is a big thing.

Almost two hundred years after he lived Johan Wolfgang von Goethe is remembered as many things: poet, playwright, dramatist, novelist, scientist. But it’s what the man left behind as a philosopher that has taken root within. Sometimes when I kind of lose my way, I frequently find something ‘good ole Wolfgang’ wrote will nudge me out of “thinking” and into “doing”. Here are four examples:

Doubt can only be removed by action.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

With the gift of lots of time on my hands it’s not easy some days to direct myself toward something, even if my desired ‘something’ is screwing off. That too can be done well. Wasting time is not performed to its full potential if the voice inside is saying I should get busy being productive. Today I make the commitment to ‘screw off and waste time’ to my fullest potential. I smiled as I typed that because I am humbly grateful for a Tuesday that is mine, all mine.

Knowledge without application
is simply knowledge.
Applying the knowledge
to one’s life is wisdom,
and that is the ultimate virtue.
Kasi Kaye Ilopouloa

Sooner or Later

/ James Browning

two women on rocks edit

Love causes pain.
Love cures pain.
And love is a pain.
Where love is,
pain is never far away.
Love will fill your heart,
break your heart
and heal the heart that’s broken.
And it is true that
every love story has an unhappy ending,
sooner or later –
even if the love lasts a lifetime,
somebody dies first,
leaving somebody behind with the pain of grief.
Love is blind – and love opens eyes.
Falling in love with someone of another race,
another religion, or another class will be
both painful and instructive,
sooner or later.
Falling in love with someone
not of your sexual persuasion
will bring pain and knowledge,
sooner or later.
And falling in love with love instead of a person
will pain you and teach you,
sooner or later.
Love is an active verb – a river, not a pond.
Love can make you want to die –
and love can make you want to live.
From the book “True Love” by Robert Fulghum

Years ago I became friends with a woman I worked with who was openly gay. In spite of knowing what I did, in time I began to fall for her. I could not help it. She was beautifully feminine, lots of fun and such a caring soul. I tried my best to keep our relationship that of two good friends. It worked for a time and then one night I tried to kiss her. I was out of line. We both ended up confused. My action started the unraveling of what we shared and in a few months I moved away for a new job. I went east and a while later she went west. Within a year we lost track of each other completely.

D… where ever you are I hope you are living a good and contented life. I pray you found the woman of your dreams and are living contentedly like you hoped. The romantic love that tried to sprout within me for you has mellowed into the kind one feels for family; for a cherished friend. You taught me about how difficult the world can be for a pretty woman who isn’t straight. Some hated you for being true to yourself. Others did not understand. Maybe I didn’t way back then, but I do now. Be happy sweet Angel… where ever you are.

A rose dreams of enjoying
the company of bees,
but none appears.
The sun asks: “
Aren’t you tired of waiting?”
“Yes,” answers the rose,
“but if I close my petals,
I will wither and die.”
Paul Coelho

Beyond Ideas of Wrong-Doing and Right-Doing

/ James Browning

flock of migrating canada geese birds flying at sunset

Almost a year ago I saved a poem by American poet Mary Oliver titled “Wild Geese”. From the first reading the words touched me with their directness and clarity.

I felt certain the poem would be a good item to include in a future G.M.G. installment. Going back to it several times there was never a morning when it seemed to fit exactly into my thoughts. Today Mary Oliver’s poem surfaced again from my hard drive and I gave in to my desire to include it here. Instead of continuing to wait for it to fit into my writing, I have chosen to include it in place of my thoughts.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I long suffered with “trying to be perfect”. My future was held hostage by holding my past to my head and firing it into my brain over and over again. Mary Oliver’s poem tells me I don’t always have to be good, nor do I have to repeatedly repent until it hurts me. She goes on to assure me that it is okay to love who and what I love. Her words about a changing landscape are a reminder how quickly things change and how fast life passes by.

Then there are the Mary Oliver’s words that ring with the most comfort: “Whoever you are, not matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination…announcing your place in the family of things”. With an emotional uprising in my chest each time I read those words, there is assurance I belong to this world and it to me. I am grateful for the peace that promise brings.

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing
and right-doing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
Rumi

I Finally Got Even

/ James Browning

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Once upon a time there was a little boy. Although his family was poor, life was good and he enjoyed his life. His Mother and Father did not get along well, but he did not notice much.

One day his Daddy ran away, leaving a note that read, “I’m gone for good. Don’t try to find me”. The little boy did not understand. He was very sad and became even more confused when his Mommy told him, “You’re now the man of the house. You gonna have to take care of your little Brother”.

After getting divorced his Mother was not around much, even though the little boy and his brother lived with her. His Father never came around. Mom was either working or going out with boyfriends all the time. The parade of different men confused the boy.

A man the boy did not like became his stepfather when he was ten. Mother said, “_____ has asked me to marry him and I’ve said yes. Is that okay with you?” So badly, the boy wanted to say, “No, he is a bad man.” but instead because he loved his mother and wanted her to be happy he replied, “It’s okay”.

Life for the boy and his brother worsened. His new “Father” was mean and treated the two boys as just being in the way. He got angry about the smallest thing and dished out painful physical punishment almost daily. The boys lived in fear and were made to work long hours every day after school, on weekends and during the summer.

The boy was growing up to be a man. Just before he was sixteen the new “Dad” drew back his hand to hit the now teenaged boy. Having had enough, in great anger the boy said “Go, ahead. I’ll stomp you until you’re a grease spot”. He meant it and would have tried to hurt the stepfather as badly has he could have.. Fortunately the older man saw that, never touched him again, but threw the boy out on the street to fend for himself three weeks later.

The teenager was homeless. With money enough for only two nights in a motel, he called the birth Father he barely knew saying, “I have no place to go. Can I come stay with you?” His Daddy said “yes”. And there he lived for a year while he and his Dad made the best peace they could.

Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner’s love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother’s love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.” Bell Hooks

A walk though the majority of his adult life shows the boy became like the description above. How could he have known the effects of surviving childhood would have so much to do with shaping his life? If we are born without the colors of life already painted, then it is childhood where the adult we become gets colored in.

I was that boy and I am that man. My gratitude overflows that in recent times I have been able to let go of most of it. And I finally got even with my evil stepfather; I became happy in spite of him!

You know all that sympathy that you feel
for an abused child who suffers
without a good mom or dad to love and care for them?
Well, they don’t stay children forever.
No one magically becomes an adult the day they turn eighteen.
Some people grow up sooner, many grow up later.
Some never really do.
…just remember that some people in this world
are older versions of those same kids we cry for.
Ashly Lorenzana

Image by Ruby Blossom
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubyblossom/with/5993608893/

The Space I Have

/ James Browning

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I had a little talk with myself.

I asked, “If nothing was holding you back and you could live anywhere, where would you be?”

I quickly answered, “Right here where I am” but knew the answer was far more than location. Yet I had no better quick answer.

I asked, “Why don’t you know for sure exactly where you’d like to be”.

I answered, “That’s a good question. I think it is more a state of being, than a physical place. My happiness is not about being some where, it is about how I fill the space where I am.

“Please explain” I said to myself.

I answered, “It’s peace I want most; to wish to be nowhere else living any other life”. I found a description that hints at that: www.experienceproject.com

I am at peace and comfortable with and with in my self.
I am not always happy with what I do in a certain moment
but I accept it as “what I have done” and go on;
maybe to learn from it and to change in the future and maybe not.
I don’t fret too much over the flawed person I am.
I do my very best to pass this same understanding
and acceptance on towards others as well.
For, giving them the benefit of the doubt
(till such a time as they prove undeserving of it)
I trust that their intentions are for the best
even as I believe mine are.

I heard myself ask, “How do you find peace?”

I answered, “You don’t find it.  It finds you. Staying present and accepting life as it really is invites peace. I am grateful be reminded that peacefulness is not about being any particular place. It comes from how well I fill the space I have.

Acceptance is not liking
or agreeing with,
it’s not submitting.
It’s not fighting with or resisting.
It’s not giving in or strategizing,
it’s not even a step towards resolution.
Acceptance is letting go of all judgments,
opinions, positions and prejudices.
Acceptance is accepting everything
about what is and isn’t so
about any given situation.
If you want to find peace
first you must find acceptance.
http://www.peaceiswhereiam.org/

Extremes of Despair and Gladness

/ James Browning

sunclouds

I wish some of my past could be erased; those parts I dislike most. Some were done to me, but many are things I did to others. It’s a hundred times harder to forgive myself than it is find forgiveness for another. My ability to let go beating myself up has improved a lot since I began successfully disputing my own BS a few years ago, but it’s still challenging, especially in a ‘down’ time.

Everyone messes up. Me, you, the neighbors, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, King David, the Buddha, everybody.

It’s important to acknowledge mistakes, feel appropriate remorse, and learn from them so they don’t happen again. But most people keep beating themselves up way past the point of usefulness: they’re unfairly self-critical.

For most people, that inner critic is continually yammering away, looking for something, anything, to find fault with. It magnifies small failings into big ones, punishes you over and over for things long past, ignores the larger context, and doesn’t credit you for your efforts to make amends.

Therefore, you really need your inner protector to stick up for you: to put your weaknesses and misdeeds in perspective, to highlight your many good qualities surrounding your lapses, to encourage you to keep getting back on the high road even if you’ve gone down the low one, and – frankly – to tell that inner critic to Shut Up.

The only wholesome purpose of guilt, shame, or remorse is learning – not punishment! – so that you don’t mess up in that way again. Anything past the point of learning is just needless suffering. Plus excessive guilt, etc., actually gets in the way of you contributing to others and helping make this world a better place, by undermining your energy, mood, confidence, and sense of worth. Author and neuropsychologist Dr. Rich Hanson http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-art-of-self-forgiveness

My gratitude is never stronger than when I come back to the ‘real world’ after a bout of cycling depression. If I am willing to get in the ring with the big “D.” and fight it things get better faster than if I just wait for it to pass.

There is darkness inside all of us… that part of our soul that is irreparably damaged by the very trials and tribulations of life. We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it. Some use it as a shield to hide behind, others as an excuse to do unconscionable things. But, truly, the darkness is simply a piece of the whole, neither good nor evil unless you make it so. Jenna Maclaine

There is no doubt that I appreciate contentment more than many people. Existing within a world of depression’s darkness and shadow even for a short time makes every breathe more precious when the lightness of ‘normal’ returns. You won’t hear many whines for I know it is the down times that ultimately make being alive so cherished. The wider the gap between the extremes of despair and gladness, the better I can bear the former and more I am grateful for the latter. Oh, what a difference a day makes!

I now see how owning our story
and loving ourselves through that process
is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
Brene Brown

My Close Relationship with Melody and Rhythm

/ James Browning

-------------------040ede0eFrom the time I can remember, music has been around me. My young parents were music fans who had a radio on most of the time. My youngest formative years were spent with Elvis, Hank Sr. and Patsy Cline.

By grammar school it was “Top 40” of the 60’s that was a soundtrack for my life. Today to sort out roughly what year a song came out all I have to do is think about what memories the tune brings up. From what I recall I can tell you where I lived and what was going on with me around the time the song was a big hit.

Lacking good examples of healthy emotions from my family of origin, many of my deepest feelings were developed through music. Every meaningful relationship I have ever had is associated musically in my memory.

During my brooding late teens/early twenties of the 70’s, lyrics like James Taylor’s influenced me (I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend…).

Early memories of falling in love are associated with songs like Chicago’s “Beginnings” (When I’m with you, it doesn’t matter where we are, or what we’re doing. I’m with you, that’s all that matters…)

By the 80’s such feelings were better described by George Michael (If you are the desert, I’ll be the sea, If you ever hunger, hunger for me, whatever you ask for that’s what I’ll be…)

REM spoke about the type confusion I felt in the 90’s when success turned out to be mostly an empty achievement (That’s me in the corner, That’s me in the spotlight, Losing my religion…). Collective Soul’s “Shine” was another song for my quandaries then (Teach me how to speak, Teach me how to share, Teach me where to go, Tell me love will be there…).

In more recent times lyrics like Ha ha ha, bless your soul, You really think you’re in control? Well, I think you’re crazy… from Knarles Barkley or Confusion never stops, Closing walls and ticking clocks from Coldplay suggested change. Forgiveness and renewal had begun within me when Linkin Park’s words hit home (For what I’ve done, I start again, And whatever pain may come, Today this ends, I’m forgiving what I’ve done…).

Music exists in every culture, and infants have excellent musical abilities that cannot be explained by learning. Mothers everywhere sing to their infants because babies understand it. …certain cells in the right hemisphere respond more to melody than to language. Evidence suggests that long-term musical involvement reaps cognitive rewards–in language skills, reasoning and creativity–and boosts social adjustment. Music exercises the brain. Norman M. Weinberger

There is equipment that plays music in just about every room in my home. I can’t imagine life without it. Music has been companion, solace, teacher, compatriot, consoler and more. Whether they bring up a happy thought, a sad memory, a painful recollection or a delightful remembrance I am profoundly grateful for my close relationship with melody and rhythm. Music has been a friend that has never forsaken me.

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words
and that which cannot remain silent.
Victor Hugo

A Prevailing Attitude that Endures

/ James Browning

1347909838-425614-0170477_www.nevseoboi.com.ua

A decade’s worth of research on gratitude has shown me that when life is going well, gratitude allows us to celebrate and magnify the goodness. But what about when life goes badly?

My response is that not only will a grateful attitude help—it is essential. In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. In other words, gratitude can help us cope with hard times.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that gratitude will come easily or naturally in a crisis. It’s easy to feel grateful for the good things. No one “feels” grateful that he or she has lost a job or a home or good health or has taken a devastating hit on his or her retirement portfolio.

But it is vital to make a distinction between feeling grateful and being grateful. We don’t have total control over our emotions. We cannot easily will ourselves to feel grateful, less depressed, or happy. Feelings follow from the way we look at the world, thoughts we have about the way things are, the way things should be, and the distance between these two points.

But being grateful is a choice, a prevailing attitude that endures and is relatively immune to the gains and losses that flow in and out of our lives. When disaster strikes, gratitude provides a perspective from which we can view life in its entirety and not be overwhelmed by temporary circumstances. Yes, this perspective is hard to achieve—but my research says it is worth the effort. Trials and suffering can actually refine and deepen gratefulness if we allow them to show us not to take things for granted.

Why? Well, when times are good, people take prosperity for granted and begin to believe that they are invulnerable. In times of uncertainty, though, people realize how powerless they are to control their own destiny. If you begin to see that everything you have, everything you have counted on, may be taken away, it becomes much harder to take it for granted.

So crisis can make us more grateful—but research says gratitude also helps us cope with crisis. Consciously cultivating an attitude of gratitude builds up a sort of psychological immune system that can cushion us when we fall. There is scientific evidence that grateful people are more resilient to stress, whether minor everyday hassles or major personal upheavals. The contrast between suffering and redemption serves as the basis for one of my tips for practicing gratitude: remember the bad.

It works this way: Think of the worst times in your life, your sorrows, your losses, your sadness—and then remember that here you are, able to remember them, that you made it through the worst times of your life, you got through the trauma, you got through the trial, you endured the temptation, you survived the bad relationship, you’re making your way out of the dark. Taken from an on-line article by Robert Emmons http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_can_help_you_through_hard_times

There is no power within me to fully explain the difference a focus on being grateful has had on me. To say gratitude has been life changing may sound exaggerated, but I assure you for me it is absolutely true.

Appreciating what I have
is my medicine.
Betty Jamie Chung

First Official Day

/ James Browning

After-a-While-Poem
I found this poem… sometime around my junior or senior year of high school. I’m sure I thought it applied to something going on in my life at the moment although I can’t remember what. Aren’t all things in high school trivial? But it really meant something to me. So much so that I’ve kept this exact paper clipping for at least 17 years… I find it from time to time tucked away in an old journal or notebook, in between pages of my Bible or this time at the bottom of a drawer in my bedside table.

The overall message seems to be about the end of romantic love, but I think it is about much more than that. I think it’s about things like friendship, insecurity, being unsure of a situation or just in believing in your self instead of relying on other people for happiness. To me, it’s more about learning from everything you live through. Good or bad. Kami Bible http://kamibible.me/2010/04/28/even-sunshine-burns-if-you-get-too-much/

After a While by Veronica Shoffstall

After a while, you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul;

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning,
And company doesn’t always mean security;

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts,
And presents aren’t promises;

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of a women, not the grief of a child;

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight;

And after a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much;

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn
That you really can endure,
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth,
And you learn,
And you learn;
With every goodbye you learn.

No longer am I surprised when the exact thing I need appears at just the correct moment. And so it was today. Searching for something completely different I came across Kami Bible’s blog about Veronica Shoffstall’s poem. Here on the first official day of my semi-retirement I am grateful for the perspective this brought to my morning at precisely the time I needed it.

Are these things really better
than the things I already have?
Or am I just trained
to be dissatisfied with
what I have now?
 Chuck Palahniuk

Where I Am

/ James Browning

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Pain: An unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity
as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional suffering or distress.

A rather amazing realization is beginning to make itself known: how negatively staying in a job I did not enjoy effected me. I loved the people I worked with and that now appears clearly as the reason I kept doing it. Well, that and the fact that I did know what else to do. Making a choice to leave a profession of decades is a bit like climbing a tall, difficult to scale mountain: difficult to prepare for and even more difficult to do.

With my work responsibility lightening up before retirement I find myself reviewing the previous few months. The almost startling discovery is how much less depression has effected me once I made the choice to hang it up. It’s easy to understand why from my current vantage point: I do not have to be concerned about the performance of the business, the profitability of the next quarter or what our competitors might do. Doing such things had been a part of my life for so long they had become habitually normal (but in reality is anything but normal).

Only in giving up the emotional suffering and distress that came with being a responsible manager of a large business have I begun to realize the madness I lived in for so long. It has been said there are four primary ways my body has to deal with pain: sleep, forgetting, madness and death. Many times sleep came with difficulty due to my business worries. Forgetting was not an option and obviously I am still alive, which left madness for me to escape into from time to time. And my brand of madness was depression.

Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind’s way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying ‘time heals all wounds’ is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told. From “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss

Right now life feels so much lighter than it ever has in my adult life. Allowing me to be accountable only for myself is eye-opening. There are those I care about who I’ll help without hesitation, but I am not responsible for them. It feels like half the weight of the world has been taken from my shoulders and I have not had a bout of depression in months. So this is what taking care of one’s self feels like. I like it and am grateful to be exactly where I am!

I give you this to take with you:
Nothing remains as it was.
If you know this, you can
begin again, with pure joy
in the uprooting.
Judith Minty