Finding Connection In A Complex World

We live in a world of many points of view.  We are a planet of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheist and many more.  We are Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, Independents, Libertarians, Green and Apolitical.  We are men, women, gay, and transgender.  These are the things that set us apart.  What bring us together are love, compassion, understanding, happiness, courage, integrity and decency.

If we peel the onion of segregation we find an all-encompassing heart.  Underneath it all most of us want the same things; food, shelter, safety and love.

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Turning Our Lives Into Master Pieces

The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.  ~Joan Didion

So many of us let life happen as if we are passive bystanders and have no say in what and how life transpires.  Instead of making choices we live a life of reacting.  On the other hand making decisions on how we want our lives to develop demands responsibility but offers in return self-respect.

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Ingredients For A Life Well Lived

There are some ingredients that are really important for us to develop if we want to have a chance for a more fulfilling life.  The list is independent of race, age, gender or socio-economic status.

1 – Our ability to let go – Living in the moment requires releasing control of any outcome.  We are here in this moment and in this situation.  Where the future goes it’s not so important.  Where we are is.

“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” -Anais Nin

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A Wednesday Love Poem – 1

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms,

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.

Thanks to your love a certain fragrance,

risen darkly from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride,

so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where “I” does not exist, nor “you,”

So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

So close that your eyes close and I fall asleep.

-Pablo Neruda

A Wednesday Love Poem – 2

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the others welcome, and say, sit here. Eat

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate

notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life

- Derek Alton Walcott

Letting Go Requires Love

Today I read Theresa Brown’s “A Dying Patient Is Not A Battle Field” on CNN.Com.  Theresa is an oncology nurse in Pennsylvania. She is a leading contributor to The New York Times’ blog Well and the author of “Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between.”

In this particular piece Theresa discusses the end of life of a cancer patient who encouraged by family and doctors decides to continue a losing battle with his illness.  The end result was a more brutal death than if the patient had chosen to go home and live what was left of his life the best way possible.  Theresa writes if the patient had been given clear information of the consequences of continuing chemotherapy he would have chosen to go home.  Most people knowing there is almost no chance for survival would move forward with chemotherapy especially when their bodies are already so weak and fragile.

Nurse Brown, you are so right and wise.

In the last couple of months of my husband’s life it had become clear to me that the end was coming.  In the last couple of weeks it was clear the end had arrived.

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Life Lessons 2

I read today on CNN.com about a Sri Lankan woman who went to work in Saudi Arabia as a housemaid.  When the Sri Lankan woman complained about being overworked the Saudi couple went on to hammer 18 nails into her body.

What immediately came to my mind was the fact that the Sri Lankan woman was no more than an object to the Saudi couple.  She was never seen by them as a mother, sister, or a friend.  To them she was just a body.

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Life Lessons

I have just watched the brilliant TED TALK (ideas worth spreading) below by Lewis Pugh.  Please watch as it contains important observations and lessons about life.

Pugh, is a 40-year-old former reservist in Britain’s special forces regiment, the Special Air Service.  He has gained worldwide attention for his extreme adventures, designed to dramatize the environmental threats to the planet.

Besides doing something important for the environment Pugh reminds us of how important it is to fully commit to that we want to achieve.

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How To Be A Friend

When I was eleven years old I participated in my first but modified Secret Santa.  The difference between the traditional game and ours was that; 1- it wasn’t Christmas and 2 – we had to add to the gift a letter letting our friend know our thoughts about them.

I don’t remember what my gift was but I remember what I wrote because of its consequences.  On a piece of paper I wrote the words “I like you. You are nice but not very smart.”

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Surviving Life’s Low Points

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary.   I am here but my husband isn’t.  We actually only got to commemorate our first wedding anniversary.  Chris passed away nine days before our second.

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