Never Done Until We Are

I’m going to focus today on this quote from author L.R. Knost and a blog from the incredibly inspiring Hannah Wilson.

I’ve written before on how nothing stays the same forever (Hopes and Opportunities and Life is Interacting), even if it feels like it does. As Knost says, we cycle through things we consider awesome, terrible and, well, boring. Lots of boring.

Ups, downs and flatness. We need to accept and deal with all of them. I’ve written about the painful let-down fans experience after attending a big concert, in Life and Fandom. Fans can fear the flatness and downs of normal life. They are not the only ones who do so. Any activity that absorbs large chunks of our days can end up affecting our abilities to experience a rich and fully-lived life. To truly thrive.

We can’t (or shouldn’t) hide forever.

Hannah Wilson talks of this in her blog, Values-Led Leadership: Moving from Surviving to Thriving. That’s my interpretation of her amazing story, anyway. She admits that she found herself existing in the title of “Educator” to the point where she had a panic attack. She had lost herself to her job.

Thriving requires knowing and living truthfully within ourselves.

Hannah offers ways to help us define those things in her blog. She uses references from a variety of sources, who all support these key steps to thriving:

●       Know you why

●       Engage in coaching

●       Know your values

●       Be authentic

●       Live your values

●       Articulate your vision

●       Be resilient

●       Be outward-facing

●       Find your tribe

●       Find your fit

Is life breathtakingly beautiful?

I’ll be honest: I’m struggling with that one. I look at Hannah’s list and can see an action plan to a beautiful life. I can also see where I myself have clearly failed. (And hope to change that, as there is the promise of YET.)  I see Knost’s “amazing” and “awful” as applying to both my own actions and the world I find myself in. Therefore, some of it I can take the credit/blame for, but other parts seem grossly out of my control- verging on a sense of hopelessness. We need hope to see beauty.

I think a bridge between these two women’s thoughts and our realities can be found within Knost’s phrase, “soul-healing”. Hannah’s list emphasizes connecting with other people: getting a coach, facing outward, finding your tribe, finding your fit. To me, those address our inner selves: our souls. That can give us hope.

If we don’t touch other lives, our own will be hollow. So…

Breath in...

Hold on...

Relax and exhale…

Living is beautiful. Living is hell. Living is.

Never done until we are.

The Captains of Our Ships

UK Headteacher Hannah Wilson, @TheHopefulHT, posted this quote in a tweet recently. Unafraid of sailing my ship? I used to be terrified: so scared I’d make the wrong move that I didn’t make any moves whatsoever. At least, looking back now it seems that way. In truth, I probably made the moves that I was capable of at the time.

I’m capable of so much more today.

Lately, I’ve been getting kind of weepy at times. OK, I’ll confess to some actual sobs once or twice, even. Why? Because I can perceive how freaking big and beautiful this world is, and I want more. I sense my mortality in one hand and in the other, more connections to people and places than I ever have had before, and it sometimes overwhelms me.

In the quote’s framework, I’m a sea-proven captain at the wheel of my schooner in the midst of a raging gale, howling with laughter as I face the storm. My giddiness battles with fears of losing it all, not fear in experiencing it.

My ship is a quirky one. Many are confused by it or laugh a bit over its route. From many viewpoints, it’s not the most successful of vessels. But it’s mine more and more every day.

I can finally say I’m really learning to sail it.

I’m a late-bloomer. I know people who had a vision in their teens and twenties and haven’t wavered much through the years I’ve known them. I’ve always been jealous of that consistency and frustrated with my own inability to emulate that behavior. I’ve bounced from one thing to the next, immersing myself in the moment but never being able to say, “This is it!”.

While I’m having a blast on my ship, it has a few holes in the hull. Income and medical needs are two that would sink or dry-dock me without the support of others. I’m not alone in that; we all rely on other captains and crafts in this fleet of humanity. It’s critical to do so.

Other captains teach us what they have learned of the seas. They offer suggestions based on their own travels. They sympathize with us and laugh with us. Sometimes we separate as friends and other times as foes. Regardless, it pays to remember they are sailing as we are: imperfectly informed, supplied and equipped. We can acknowledge that even when we disagree with course.

I’m hoping to meet a slew of new captains and their ships in the coming years. Perhaps ones who will help grow my writing career. Others who may help me flesh out ideas on Asian Studies project-based learning at the high school level, connecting youth with experts in music and other arts to create something new and culturally bridge-building. Possibly some will push my ship on a completely different and currently unknown journey. I’m open to it. Not knowing what will happen is part of the fun in traveling.

We shouldn’t be afraid. We each have a different way. How wonderful if we can embrace what is ours and moving toward the sun. It rises and sets, whatever choices we make.

Compassion in the Mirror and Beyond

Special thanks to UK education leadership specialist Viv Grant of Integrity Coaching for her tweet this week with this very important reminder from the American author and Buddhist practitioner, Jack Kornfield.

This one also goes out to the other new connections I’ve made in recent months, especially Will Lee and Hannah Wilson. I’ve felt great compassion coming from your work.

Compassion. In my mind, it’s one of the keys to our existence. The standard definition describes a sense of pity and concern for what others are going through. When someone is killed for no other reason than the color of their skin or when famine and violence threaten innocent families simply trying to live, we should have a sense of compassion. Compassion leads to action and action is what really matters. Action shows what we really stand for.

What benefit is there to looking at ourselves with compassion? It might help to literally go to the mirror and do so. Look into your own eyes and say, “I see you and what you’ve gone through.”.

Sometimes we can’t face ourselves. We feel as though the problems within and around us are simply too much to handle and we turn away. This can put us on the slippery slope toward defeat. If we fall into a mindset where we feel helpless and hopeless, then our vision becomes blind to anything else.

There is a mountain of pain in this world. Yet, there is also great goodness. If we can look at ourselves and cling to even a single positive, we have hope. If we have hope, we can keep looking. We can keep trying. And when we try, anything…or at least something...is possible.

Fail? Regroup and go at it again. Perhaps you’ll inspire someone else to make a move. Even if you don’t get a single acknowledgement of your attempts, you can still look yourself in the eye in that mirror and again show yourself some compassion: “No one can take my work away from me.”. Eventually, your efforts may make a surprising difference in your life… or in another’s.

I was soaked in self-loathing in 8th grade, as many early teens are. I was a highly emotional, artistic girl struck down by a self-doubt and peer ridicule that I was not able to handle alone. A classmate found me one day, hiding in the art supplies storeroom, bawling my eyes out. Through a series of goofy jokes and pointed observations, he helped me see some sunshine despite the maelstrom I was being swallowed by. He showed me compassion. I learned later that he took that amazingly compassionate spirit and reached out to a multitude of others through his short life. To my lifelong regret, he did not receive- or feel- the compassion he himself needed, taking his own life in despair. He turned his glance away from the eyes in that mirror and couldn’t find a way to look back.

Let’s shoot for as perfect a compassion as we can manage. It starts with ourselves. It must then spread out to the larger world. To each other.

Compassion. Action. What we really stand for.