Love and compassion and kindness are like the pure water of life that we each need in order to survive. I mean that literally. They are a basic human need, and without them, no abundant life is possible.

This is true no matter how far or how near we are at any given moment from embracing and manifesting them.

The cup from which we drink is not nearly as important as the fact that we both freely give and gladly receive that water. The cup may be religion, spiritual practice, a chosen way of being in the world, or simply relationship with others and with ourselves. These cups may be flawed, inefficient, or even broken. It’s not important. It’s the water that is life giving, not the cup.

It is only when we begin to understand the essential nature of love and compassion and kindness that we can begin to glimpse the gift that we each can uniquely gift to the world. Those gifts are unique to each of us because we’ve each led different lives, have had different experiences, different interests and passions, faced different obstacles or challenges, had different failures and different victories and opportunities.

When we begin to finally understand and integrate this uniqueness and the power of the love that under-girds it, we cannot help but want to live FROM this knowledge and the values that support it.

More importantly, we find that we move toward wishing to live a relentlessly wholehearted, intentional, authentic, and simple life. Not simple as in austere or ascetic or shallow, but simple as in uncomplicated. There is no need for allowing our love and kindness and compassion for those we encounter every day to be a complicated thing. There IS a need to practice it intentionally and wholeheartedly. And to do so in the knowledge that for most of us as flawed human beings, citizens of a too-often challenging world, we’re going to get it wrong at least as often as we get it right. And to not beat ourselves up too badly on those occasions, but rather double-down on our resolve to do better next time.

Ok.  I’ve written the first part of this using the “we” voice.  I did so intentionally because I really do believe the thoughts do (or should) apply to all of us.  Now, for the rest of this piece, I’m intentionally switching  to the “I” voice.  Because while I may feel that others should believe as I do, I want to make the specific point that what I’m saying from here on out applies to ME, and to the way I choose to be in the world. 

Up above I said we need to choose to “not beat ourselves up too badly on those occasions, but rather double-down on our resolve to do better next time.”   I know what I’m talking about here.  I really do.   I’ve been world-class at beating myself up … for a long, long time … for choices I have made (even choice that go back decades) that were clear mistakes, or actions I have failed to take when a radically different choice would have served me and those around me better. I have also been unable or unwilling to forgive myself for some of those mistakes or omissions.  Like some of you, perhaps, I have lived with an inner critic that second-guesses most of what I do.  Silencing that voice has proven not nearly as easy for me as I think it may be for some.  I have worked, especially very recently, to sit with that voice … that “inner me” …. to try and understand him, know him, and to engage in an inner dialog with him.  I know that sometimes he is motivated by love.   But I also know that sometimes he is motivated by fear or even anger.   I am not good at expressing anger, and not even particularly skilled at understanding it and working through it or letting go of it.  However, acknowledging that it is there and seeing it for what it is has been a huge first step in living my way in to a better way of being.

I won’t even pretend to deny that part of what has led me here is the way in which becoming a grandparent has changed me.  Changed me. I am looking forward to being the best possible grandpa to my new little ones (Aurora and Bonnie) that I can possibly be. I want to share my stories, help them both make sweet memories that last a lifetime, and shower them with the special one-of-a-kind love that they will not be able to find other than from me.   Of course I know they’ll get the gift of love from SO many people in their lives, and that fills me up.  But I cannot bear the idea of NOT gifting them with …. well…. with me and what I have to teach them.   So there.

I don’t need to have everything figured out to live a fulfilling life of joy (shared) and happiness (experienced and given) and wisdom (revealed and discovered and shared). What I DO have to do is “wander unafraid” ( this phrase chosen intentionally … it truly IS a wandering, as saṃsāra) through a world that so badly needs what I uniquely have to give and offer and share, and to do so with a mindset to make the best difference I can in other’s lives each day. And how DARE I intentionally choose NOT to give of that fount, no matter how freely it may be flowing at any given moment.  How DARE I not let that fount fill ME every day as well.

It’s taken me a long, long time (and a lot of therapy) to be able to articulate these thoughts in a way that feels authentic, and to feel that I’ve begun to integrate them (at least a little) into my life. And to bravely be able to say that I do not mind you calling me out when you find I am NOT living my values.

So let me say it here as clearly as I know how:

My values are love and kindness and compassion.
My desire is to be wholehearted, intentional, and authentic.

I do NOT think that the universe can be arranged and made sense of without love and kindness and compassion.   Just as surely as mathematics can predict the nature of the universe through the equations of quantum mechanics or general relativity, I believe that what is true and essential and eternal in the universe (and in our lives) can ONLY be understood utilizing love and that which flows from it.

There is so much I do not know, and will likely never know, and perhaps am incapable of knowing.   That’s ok. It really is. I believe with all my heart that love is (and must be) at the center of it all.

I’m not as old as some of you who will read this, but I am older than many of you who will. At age 66, I don’t have a specific retirement date in mind. It won’t be tomorrow, but it won’t be too long.  And whenever that happens, I choose NOT to view it as the off-ramp of my useful life.

What I choose is to embrace these values and desires as the on-ramp to the rest of my life. And to enjoy the hell out of both the highway and the rest-stops.

Wander with me, won’t you??

love,
John