Well consider this: there are pre-set ways to do this already out there in life. Tested and proven ways that will provide you with answers to life’s most difficult questions: how to fit in to society, how to treat your parents, how to date, what to do for work. These pre-set methods are provided by culture or society, by religion, or by your parents. If you just accept one of these, its tenets or guidance will enable you to balance the complexities of life — and be happy!

But what about those of us that are caught at the edges? At a time when culture is shifting or religions are battling? At a time when there are so many religions to choose from and belief in religion is being challenged by a belief in cold, hard science. What about those of us that see the future as being guided by something tangibly different from the past? Are we doomed to live unhappy – always searching for new ways of doing things? Always trying to figure out how to balance our own lives, with no one to turn to that can provide useful or functional answers?

What about those that see our current culture as broken and want to do something about it? Want to forge new trails of work and love to provide new answers, new methods – a new culture for others to follow.

I suppose the harsh realities of life dictate that some of us will be successful and happy and others will not. Some of us will find a path that works for us, and others will toil our entire lives, seeking comfort and happiness — seeking a balance that brings our hearts and minds together and puts them at ease.

What to do?

So let’s consider what this might take to accomplish. I’ve heard that there are three areas of life: work, play, and love (I believe this came originally from a quote by Lady Bird Johnson – Lyndon Johnson’s wife). Let’s start by considering if these cover all areas of life:

• Work: This could be construed as everything that is required for survival: food, clothing, shelter and whatever it takes to ensure your continued ability to acquire these things. In our culture today, this primarily means money. How do you get it? How do you hold on to it? How do you keep it coming?
• Play: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. What rejuvenates you? What feeds your heart and soul? What makes it worth getting up in the morning or staying up late at night? What do you live for?
• Love: Family – the one you’re born into and the one you form on your own, relationships, community, friends, and lovers. When I think about love in this context, I don’t see it as being about romantic love or passion, it’s more about how you relate to the people around you. It’s about love for your fellow man, compassion perhaps. To put it another way, it’s about furthering the human race. It’s about ensuring that “we” continue to get better — and by better, I mean more capable of surviving. This may include having children, being nice to people, or doing community service. It also may include creating art that inspires others, or books that educate, or science that furthers technological advancement.

In retrospect, I don’t know that my three initial terms are accurate. Let’s choose another three based on the descriptions I gave for the first three:

• Survival
• Passion
• Community

I think these terms better capture the descriptions that I wrote above, although they’re not quite as catchy. I suppose either will work.

But that still leaves the question: is that everything? If you balance survival, passion, and community in your life; have you done it? Are you happy? Is that all there is to it?

Another way to consider this from would be our need to satisfy our intellect, our emotions, and our spiritual side. Is that included in this balance? Where does religion fall in my proposal?

I would argue that our intellect’s job is to solve problems, and their is a great problem laid out here – balancing these things. So the intellect should be kept busy and happy. Emotions are a direct driver of the Passion element, and therefore should also be taken care of. This only leaves spirituality – and what is that anyway? I find it very difficult to define in words in our Western culture. My feeling is that it falls somewhere between and amongst Passion and Community, although Survival (and challenges to it) seem to put us in direct contact with our own spirituality. I believe we should be passionate about our spirituality, but our spirituality also connects us with others, and is therefore a big factor in the community that we build around us.

Close

I’m not going to pretend that I’ve solved any of the world’s problems here, but maybe I’ve at least helped myself. I understand that what I’ve laid out is my perception of how to balance my own life. It’s funny isn’t it? I set out to figure out a fundamental explanation of what is required to balance one’s life and be happy. If I was successful, any religion or culture could be described and compared based on how it guides its followers or members to fulfill on these three areas of their lives: Survival, Passion, and Community.

Whether I have accomplished that or not, I would like you to tell me. Perhaps all I’ve done is create another means by which to determine how to fulfill those areas for yourself – a competing culture or religion, if you will.

Let me know what you think, and specifically let me know if you think I’ve correctly identified the three areas:

If you balance Survival, Passion, and Community, will you be happy?

Listening to Obama’s acceptance speech last night, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between Lincoln (which he talked about), FDR, and him. I suppose to leave out Washington is historically inaccurate, but I don’t know enough to draw those conclusions. This is not to say that I have decided that Obama is a great president and that history is already decided – there are many issues that he must confront and his challenge is much more in the leadership and organization vein than any other. Will he be able to break the US reputation for only being capable of handling one major issue at a time? We shall see, but I digress…

The point I was headed for is based on the generational political cycles discussed in the book Millennial Makeover. In brief, there are four main types of generations in Anglo-Saxon culture (including the US), and these cycle through in order. The current generation – the Millennials, or Gen Y – are an example of a civic generation. Civic generations also fought the revolution, the civil war, and world war II. Thus, when Obama referenced Lincoln in his speech last night, and the commentators referenced FDR in 1932, the association rang particularly true through that perspective.

Yes we can

“Yes we can,” he said. This is the first presidential campaign slogan that I have heard in my life that seems to reach out and inspire people on a massive scale, a scale on par with the stories that we read about in history books growing up. I guess so much of this will be written by history, but Obama’s climb to power is an impressive feat in a short period of time, and one that does ride on hope for change.

So DC erupted last night. As I lay in bed at 2 or 3 in the morning, I was awakened repeatedly by honking, yelling, and probably gun fire (although I wouldn’t swear to it) above the dull, continuous roar of a crowd all along U street. I have seen so many quotes from black Americans that for the first time, they feel like real Americans – that they are no longer second class citizens. Jesse Jackson crying in the crowd in Chicago. I will not even pretend to understand the relief that seems to have come from Obama’s election in this regard, but it certainly seems to be cathartic on a cultural level for race relations in our country. That is not to say that we are all done with that part of our history, but as Obama said in his speech, this is the beginning of a change that will be significant for our country.

No fear

If you’re like me, you’re wondering how all of this babbling relates to the title of the post. I guess I would have to say that Obama’s hope for change has successfully moved the US in many ways from a culture of fear. So much of the racial difficulties derive from fear – historic fear and guilt bred from centuries of abuse and mistrust and violence. 9/11 and the politics of fear that ensued from that. Fear is crippling. It promotes decisions based not on reason, but rather on emotion. It creates a world run by reactive response, instead of proactive leadership. It is my belief that it is fear that has led the US to fall from our leadership position in the world. To be pursuing the elimination of danger instead of the creation of safety. To be so busy protecting our interests that there is no room to promote our ideals. If you’re going to lead you have to be in front. No one likes a backseat driver, but that is where we’ve been – all the while sitting in the driver’s seat!

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” said Roosevelt in his first inaugural address in 1933. He wasn’t talking about confronting enemies in a war. He was talking about the Great Depression. He was talking about confronting ourselves. Now, as then, there are enemies out in the world, but the way to defeating them is not through protectionism, it’s through engagement with the rest of the world and confronting our own issues.

Life is for the Living.

As I lay awake last night listening to the crowds celebrate and thinking about fear, I realized something: I have been operating my personal life out of fear. My work life is great, but I continue to struggle in the arenas of play and love. What do I want? What do I enjoy? Am I happy? What do I need in order to be happy? I couldn’t answer these questions. Why? Fear. Fear of losing a friendship. Fear of ending a relationship. Fear of insulting or hurting people around me – the people I love (family and friends), the people I know (acquaintances), the people I meet on the street, the people I just pass and never even speak with. This was not a debilitating fear, it was a very functional fear. Most people would not even recognize it as fear, but rather as a sort of niceness. And in fact, this fear has given me wonderful diplomatic skills. I can’t complain about that, given my current location and goals in life.

The difficulty is that I have been so concerned with avoiding danger (instead of creating safety), that all I have seen is danger. I have known that in fact I am surrounded by love and support (and yes – safety), but unable to really enjoy it, to take advantage of it, to relax, to revel in life and all that it has to offer.

I can’t say that the curse is fully broken, time will tell if that is true. But I’ve made a big step in this regard. And I’m really excited about it.

Several years ago, I was doing some therapy and my final realization was “Life is for the living.” I continue to understand that more and more as I grow up (I know I’m 37), but I think the important part for me today is to take advantage of every opportunity presented to you and don’t spend time worrying about the ones you miss. There are so many opportunities every day, it’s not possible to explore all of them.

And if you think this isn’t true, then your eyes are also shut like mine sometimes are.

Life IS for the living. So get out there! If you’re reading this, tell me what new thing you’re going to take up that you’ve always wanted to do in the comments below.

Wayne

Now I’m not a big fan of the Buddhist framing of concepts. I find karma to make a little of sense, but to be a somewhat circuitous route to arrive at concepts that could be arrived at many other ways. This is not to say that I find it invalid in any way and I suppose there is something to be said for having multiple ways to look at the same problem. This is just such an example.

If I may summarize in my own words and perspective:

The purpose of a relationship is to work together to serve the greater good or community or some similar thing. Consequently, you should be with someone who shares your goals and ideologies (what this means will vary depending upon who you are).

Happiness comes from serving others. If you devote your life to serving other people, you will be happy. In a relationship, this means that you focus completely on meeting every want or need that the other person has.

You create your own reality. While the Buddhist perspective takes this quite literally, the points that they make using it remain valid even if you back it off a bit to say that you control your perspective of reality. This becomes important in terms of creating a relationship that you are fully satisfied with.

Don’t talk to your partner. Okay, maybe they wouldn’t quite say that, but in effect they are. The point is that you can create the type of relationship that you want by working on who you are — by changing your expectations and desires and by working to fully satisfy your partner at the same time. And you can’t TELL your partner that they have to do the same thing! They have to come to it of their own volition – otherwise, they won’t be doing it for themselves, and their commitment will not be sufficient to handle all the suckiness that is involved in self-introspection.

The third party solution is fascinating. Basically (using the karmic perspective), if you are experiencing unhappiness from something your partner is doing that’s because you have caused that same type of unhappiness on others in the past. So what you have to do is satisfy the karma by bringing happiness of the same type to other people. It doesn’t have to happen within your relationship. Example: if you want your partner to be more affectionate, you should be more friendly to people at work. Talk to that guy that no one likes. Buy someone a coffee next time you pick one up, etc… In this way, you will reverse your karma and your partner will change.

Seems a little fantastical, right? Well consider this: if you spend your time doing nice things for people, you will become someone who does nice things (simple enough?). A person that does nice things draws less enmity and more niceness (aka affection) from others. In addition, this person begins to attract other people who do nice things thus moving towards a different social circle and a completely different perspective of how the world operates.

In this way, you can “create” you perfect partner by being a perfect partner and continuing to work on improving yourself. Basically, you use your partner as a mirror to see what it is that you need to work on.

Is this the one? Finally, and this is the part I haven’t fully worked out. How do you know when you meet the right person? Well, first of all, there is no right person. This seems to make sense – I mean, maybe you luck out and meet someone who is at the same place in life as you and wants all the same things on the same time scale. But come one, what are the chances that the two of you will continue to want the same things for the next 50 or 100 years? It must happen, but the odds are significantly against it. Even in this idyllic situation however, all of the above advice still functions.

The difficult part of what they say is that if you start working on you and “creating you perfect partner” (you know, in your mind), that if the one you’re with now isn’t right, that will resolve itself and you will be open and ready to meet the one that will fit into your vision. The example they used for this had to with a woman whose boyfriend was having trouble committing. They recommended that if she fully commit, not just in the relationship but in other areas of her life as well, that he would either commit to her or move on, leaving her free to meet someone who is ready to commit.

You you you. I guess that’s really the point. If you don’t know who you are or what you want, how can you be open to it. Especially in big cities today, you meet so many people every day. How you find someone to spend your life with if you’re looking for that person to make you happy? You need to bring your own happiness to the table and take the opportunities provided by a relationship to even better understand what you need to be happy. All the while, doing your best to give them everything they need so they have the opportunity to do the same.

Ah, relationships – how confusing! How simple! How natural! How complex! How terrible! How wonderful! And yet so important to life.

If you listen to the audio, let me know what you think in the comments below,
Wayne

No. Seriously. What is that about? We all talk about it and want it and chase after it, but what is it? What is it really? Bear with me, I’ve been working on this…

I read an article recently – ok, an excerpt from a book – by a professor of literature that talked about how her life has been harmed by her excessive reading during the all-critical, socialization stage of her life. Instead of learning about relationships and how to make friends, she learned about love from Wuthering Heights, which has left her seeking love that is more important than life and outlives death – to what end? Not a happy one, in her estimation.

So here’s what I think. First of all, there are several types of love and by having only one word, we confuse ourselves. Where do you draw the lines between the love a mother has for her child, a brother and sister share, love between friends, the love that grows from having great respect for someone, that deep and abiding love that never fades, romantic love, and even universal love for all humanity? We all experience these, or some subset of them but use the same word – how confusing! So first, let’s be specific about what we’re talking about – this will help everyone out.

Naturally, the real complexity is in relationships – serious, long-term, committed relationships. I keep trying to rationalize and logically understand what romantic love is all about and I’ve decided (logically) that that is exactly where I’ve gone awry – you can’t. At the end of the day, love simply is. That’s it. Love – romantic, fall down breathless love – just is. It’s now – and it’s not tomorrow (or at least not until you get there). “I’ll love you forever” is only in this moment. Although that moment contains forever within it (funny, isn’t it? The great ironies of life – where the opposites meet? Wonderful).

So my current theory is that romantic love is only in the moment. But this isn’t bad, because that’s all that we have to work with anyway? When tomorrow comes, it will be now. You can’t plan on love, you can’t rationalize it, you can’t keep it, you can’t hold it. All you can do is enjoy it, and be with it, and live every minute as it comes to you. If you have love in your heart right now, enjoy it for the gift that it is, and if you have lost it or it has left you, enjoy it for what it was but let it go and clear your life and soul so that you may be available for next time that it comes. And in the meanwhile, enjoy the path. Without the bad, how would we know the good? Life is lived on a spectrum. We need difficult times in order to recognize the great times.

In the end, the journey is the reward and there are no right or wrong answers.

Let me know if you agree or not in the comments below.