Good morning, God, and thank you very much for this new day. The semester has started so I'm back to school, and it looks like my classes will be very enjoyable once again--thank you for that. It's school that I'm thinking about right now, not surprisingly, and the students that I work with--I wonder more and more each year that I teach about the needs of those students, about the things going on in their lives that are difficult for them. I think that this may be a benefit of growing older, feeling more compassion and trying to understand people on levels that are much different than the levels on which I used to understand them.
If I could ask you anything, I would ask you to help me to be there for them--especially on the academic level, of course, for that's why I'm there and why they're there. They're students at a university and I'm a teacher, so my main focus needs to be on the academics.
But that doesn't mean, of course, that I can't encourage them as people rather than as students; that I can't offer them support when things get difficult for them; that I can't show compassion and understanding when they're necessary for someone else to see. What I don't want to happen is for me to get so caught up in what we're doing academically that I lose sight of the fact that these are young human beings who are trying to find their ways in life and who could benefit from a bit of caring and a bit of other people's experiences.
I want this to be a good semester, and I know that in order for that to happen, it depends mostly on me--what I do and say, and what I don't do and say. I'd like to ask you to be there with me to help me to maintain that balance and to be an effective teacher, mentor, and colleague.
Thank you.
a reply:
You're welcome. And thank you for making compassion and understanding such an important part of who you want to be as a teacher. Most teachers, as you well know, do get caught up in their topic areas and in the performance of students that they neglect the human side of their students; they forget to even think of the pain and the confusion and the fear that their students may be feeling at any given time. They may look fine sitting there quietly in your class, but it's almost impossible to know what they may be hiding--if anything--if you never even consider the possibility that they may be hiding something important.
Many people get so focused on their work that they never consider just what the other person is experiencing in different areas of his or her life. It's so easy for us to see student, customer, client, server, officer, janitor, and so on, that we forget to see human beings with hopes and dreams and fears and such. Yes, it is a benefit of aging to be able to see more clearly with compassion and love, but aging doesn't guarantee this benefit--it only happens for those people who are open to it and who are working their ways towards love and compassion as a way of life. So stay on this road. It's a difficult one at times, but it's one that provides great rewards--for the person who feels it and the people whom that person is able to affect.
Have a great semester. Your students are great people--I made them that way. Treat them as such, and they will return the favor. Most of them, at least--not all of them are ready to do so. And they're the ones who need your love and compassion most of all.
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Monday, January 2, 2017
A difficult year to come
Good morning, God, and thanks for this new day that I've just begun to experience (in my waking state, anyway--I experienced several hours of it while asleep!). I'm looking forward to all that this day has to offer and all that I can give to this day. I have a lot of work to do this week, but it's doable--not anything that's going to overwhelm me and make me miserable. As long as I prioritize well and make sure everything gets done, I should be fine.
This is the beginning of a year that's very frightening to me. There are many changes in the wind that promise to be extremely negative, very harmful to very many people. History has given us a lot of important lessons that many people are ignoring, and we seem to be walking down paths that in the past took us to some horrible places. It's very frustrating to think that we're about to go to those places again, that we're going to be experiencing things that we had thought we had put behind us.
My fear isn't necessarily for me. I've been around a while and I've experienced a lot of different things, and I know that I can make it through hard times. My fears are for the people who are going to be harmed by the new policies and realities, especially the poor, the people who now can't afford to do much with their lives--they're going to be hit the hardest and are going to suffer the most. This is not going to be a friendly world for those who are struggling--there's going to be no last resort for them, no hope for them to work their ways through and out of their situations. I fear for the elderly and the disenfranchised, for they're going to be losing services and resources that they've been able to depend upon for years--and their losses will be tragic.
On the other hand, when I think of what the people of Syria, Iraq, North Korea, and many other countries have been going through for years--even lifetimes--this particular threat to our country seems much less daunting. I realize that I've been very fortunate to live in the country and the era in which I live, and I don't want to be whining about a little inconvenience in my life. I still have a lot of privileges and gifts that I really do appreciate, and I don't want to take those for granted or undervalue them.
I am apprehensive about the year. There will be many difficult times to go through, and much more conflict than we're used to experiencing. I'm fortunate to live in a place where that sort of thing will be minimized, but I will be witness to it somehow or another.
And the most important part of it all is, of course, what will I do to help to maintain the peace and the equanimity? What can I do? Perhaps that's what I fear most--knowing that I have the potential to help in certain ways, but not meeting that potential.
It's going to be a difficult year that we need to take day by day.
A reply:
You're definitely right: it's going to be a difficult year. Politicians and media personalities have spent years spreading divisiveness and anger and fear among the people of your country that your population is used to anger and hatred and fear and mistrust. When conflict does arise over the next year--and arise it will--people don't have enough problem-solving strategies that don't involve more conflict to be able to deal with issues in peaceful, productive ways. Your politicians long ago gave up cooperation with those with whom they disagree, so there will be very little of people working together to deal with problems. In much of your country, people resort to name-calling and insults when they're faced with opposition to what they believe is true, and that type of "strategy" is definitely not effective at all in providing positive outcomes.
You can look with hope at some things, though. Many people who have been passive for years are now realizing that they cannot be passive now if they don't want their society to be permanently and irreparably damaged. They are speaking out and they are supporting causes that try to repair and improve the world. You're going to see more people involved in discussions, more people donating to important causes, and more people questioning the status quo than you've seen in quite a long while--since at least the Vietnam war in your country.
There are theories among psychiatrists that say that as a collective consciousness, the current political situation is either a self-punishment among the people who have voted to make it reality, or a necessary self-motivation tool--human beings never thrive and shine as much as they do when they face adversity, and there will be much adversity to face in the coming months.
It will be important to take things day by day, but it will also be important to develop longer-term strategies for dealing with certain issues. What will you do personally if and when certain legislation is proposed that will hurt people or the environment? What will you do if there are proposals that threaten clean water or that add to the unequal distribution of wealth in your country? You can't focus exclusively on these things or dwell on them to the detriment of your work, for you're entrusted with the teaching of many of our young people, but you do need to have some sort of idea in mind of what you're going to do in certain situations, if anything at all.
You've had some good ideas already. Start acting on them rather than just adding them to the list of "ideas that I've had." They do no good on that list, but they may do a lot of good as the results of action.
This is the beginning of a year that's very frightening to me. There are many changes in the wind that promise to be extremely negative, very harmful to very many people. History has given us a lot of important lessons that many people are ignoring, and we seem to be walking down paths that in the past took us to some horrible places. It's very frustrating to think that we're about to go to those places again, that we're going to be experiencing things that we had thought we had put behind us.
My fear isn't necessarily for me. I've been around a while and I've experienced a lot of different things, and I know that I can make it through hard times. My fears are for the people who are going to be harmed by the new policies and realities, especially the poor, the people who now can't afford to do much with their lives--they're going to be hit the hardest and are going to suffer the most. This is not going to be a friendly world for those who are struggling--there's going to be no last resort for them, no hope for them to work their ways through and out of their situations. I fear for the elderly and the disenfranchised, for they're going to be losing services and resources that they've been able to depend upon for years--and their losses will be tragic.
On the other hand, when I think of what the people of Syria, Iraq, North Korea, and many other countries have been going through for years--even lifetimes--this particular threat to our country seems much less daunting. I realize that I've been very fortunate to live in the country and the era in which I live, and I don't want to be whining about a little inconvenience in my life. I still have a lot of privileges and gifts that I really do appreciate, and I don't want to take those for granted or undervalue them.
I am apprehensive about the year. There will be many difficult times to go through, and much more conflict than we're used to experiencing. I'm fortunate to live in a place where that sort of thing will be minimized, but I will be witness to it somehow or another.
And the most important part of it all is, of course, what will I do to help to maintain the peace and the equanimity? What can I do? Perhaps that's what I fear most--knowing that I have the potential to help in certain ways, but not meeting that potential.
It's going to be a difficult year that we need to take day by day.
A reply:
You're definitely right: it's going to be a difficult year. Politicians and media personalities have spent years spreading divisiveness and anger and fear among the people of your country that your population is used to anger and hatred and fear and mistrust. When conflict does arise over the next year--and arise it will--people don't have enough problem-solving strategies that don't involve more conflict to be able to deal with issues in peaceful, productive ways. Your politicians long ago gave up cooperation with those with whom they disagree, so there will be very little of people working together to deal with problems. In much of your country, people resort to name-calling and insults when they're faced with opposition to what they believe is true, and that type of "strategy" is definitely not effective at all in providing positive outcomes.
You can look with hope at some things, though. Many people who have been passive for years are now realizing that they cannot be passive now if they don't want their society to be permanently and irreparably damaged. They are speaking out and they are supporting causes that try to repair and improve the world. You're going to see more people involved in discussions, more people donating to important causes, and more people questioning the status quo than you've seen in quite a long while--since at least the Vietnam war in your country.
There are theories among psychiatrists that say that as a collective consciousness, the current political situation is either a self-punishment among the people who have voted to make it reality, or a necessary self-motivation tool--human beings never thrive and shine as much as they do when they face adversity, and there will be much adversity to face in the coming months.
It will be important to take things day by day, but it will also be important to develop longer-term strategies for dealing with certain issues. What will you do personally if and when certain legislation is proposed that will hurt people or the environment? What will you do if there are proposals that threaten clean water or that add to the unequal distribution of wealth in your country? You can't focus exclusively on these things or dwell on them to the detriment of your work, for you're entrusted with the teaching of many of our young people, but you do need to have some sort of idea in mind of what you're going to do in certain situations, if anything at all.
You've had some good ideas already. Start acting on them rather than just adding them to the list of "ideas that I've had." They do no good on that list, but they may do a lot of good as the results of action.
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