February 4th, 2017

February 4th, 2017


Affirmation: I am surrounded by loving, caring people in my life.


Word of the Day: feinschmecker (n):

1. German. Gourmet.

Someone Digging in the Ground

An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: for loving a true love.
Legs: to run after.

Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved. The eye goes blind
when it only wants to see why.

A lover is always accused of something.
But when he finds his love, whatever was lost
in the looking comes back completely changed.

On the way to Mecca, many dangers: thieves,
the blowing sand, only camel's milk to drink.

Still, each pilgrim kisses the black stone there
with pure longing, feeling in the surface
the taste of the lips he wants.

This talk is like stamping new coins. They pile up,
while the real work is being done outside
by someone digging in the ground.

____


Optimism vs. Expectation

I've seen the following acronym on social media (and elsewhere) many times now:

H. old
O. n
P. ain
E. nds

As cliche and trite as it might seem to some people, I really like it. I believe that where there's life, there's hope and in the words of Emily Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Furthermore, I am an optimist. This is not to say that I am a deluded Pollyanna, for I certainly have my share of dark, desperate, and despondent days. Rather, there is something deep within me, beneath the surface waters of life's trials and tribulations, that believes that things are going to work out.

My interest was recently piqued when I read of an interview with prisoners of war that had survived their captivity. They were asked what made the difference between the prisoners who had survived and those who had not. Interestingly, the survivors said that those who hadn't made it out were the "optimists."

How curious!

They went on to say that these "optimists" would tell themselves and others that they would be out by Christmas, and Christmas would come and go. Then they would say that they would be out by their birthdays or Thanksgiving or some other arbitrary date or end point. These days would come and go and by the time that "Christmas" rolled around again (or for the 5th time), they would "die of a broken heart."

As a self-described optimist, I took time to mull this over in my head for a bit. And I came to the conclusion that it wasn't the optimism per se that caused these men (they were all men in this case) so much strife and ultimately their lives; rather, I believe that it was expectation.

For the men who had survived admitted that they all had "hope" and they all had a vision of or belief in their eventual freedom.

What differentiated these men was less about the optimism/ vision/ hope/ goal and more about tying that hope to a very specific outcome, pinning "the thing with feathers" down rather than "holding it lightly" or letting it go and allowing it to be free.

This is not to say that when one has goals/ hopes/ visions/ etc. that one should not take action and make steps towards it - without these things, dreams remain castles in the air. Rather, this is to say that once the goal/ hope/ vision/ etc. is established and the action plan is in place, we cannot get so caught up on the end that we either lose sight of the process OR become so discouraged if the end doesn't work out how or when we planned that we abandon the desire altogether.

It pains me to think of how many human dreams have perished in this way! I know several of mine have.

In the words of Danielle LaPorte, "It is better to stay with the ache than to abandon the desire."

...it is so, so much better.