Wisdom From Anne Lamott

Today, I must share Anne Lamott’s facebook post from yesterday.  Here it is:

I am going to be 61 years old in 48 hours. Wow. I thought i was only forty-seven, but looking over the paperwork, I see that I was born in 1954. My inside self does not have an age, although can’t help mentioning as an aside that it might have been useful had I not followed the Skin Care rules of the sixties, ie to get as much sun as possible, while slathered in baby oil. (My sober friend Paul O said, at eighty, that he felt like a young man who had something wrong with him.). Anyway, I thought I might take the opportunity to write down every single thing I know, as of today.

1. All truth is a paradox. Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift; and it is impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It has been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It is so hard and weird that we wonder if we are being punked. And it filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together.

2. Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

3. There is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of last way, unless you are waiting for an organ. You can’t buy, achieve, or date it. This is the most horrible truth.

4. Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides. Also, you can’t save, fix or rescue any of them, or get any of them sober. But radical self-care is quantum, and radiates out into the atmosphere, like a little fresh air. It is a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, “Well, isn’t she full of herself,” smile obliquely, like Mona Lisa, and make both of you a nice cup of tea.

5. Chocolate with 70% cacao is not actually a food. It’s best use is as bait in snake traps.

6. Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart–your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it’s why you were born

7. Publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and sometimes nearly-evil men I have known were all writers who’d had bestsellers. Yet, it is also a miracle to get your work published (see #1.). Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, will fill the Swiss cheesey holes. It won’t, it can’t. But writing can. So can singing.

8. Families; hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be. (See #1 again.) At family gatherings where you suddenly feel homicidal or suicidal, remember that in half of all cases, it’s a miracle that this annoying person even lived. Earth is Forgiveness School. You might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants. When Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But that you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderellie. You will be amazed.

9. Food; try to do a little better.

10. Grace: Spiritual WD-40. Water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Dick Cheney and me exactly as much as He or She loves your grandchild. Go figure. The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and our world. To summon grace, say, “Help!” And then buckle up. Grace won’t look like Casper the Friendly Ghost; but the phone will ring, or the mail will come, and then against all odds, you will get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness, even if you are sick of me saying it.

11. God; Goodnesss, Love energy, the Divine, a loving animating intelligence, the Cosmic Muffin. You will worship and serve something, so like St. Bob said, you gotta choose. You can play on our side, or Bill Maher’s and Franklin Graham’s. Emerson said that the happiest person on earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot, and look up. My pastor says you can trap bees on the floor of a Mason jar without a lid, because they don’t look up. If they did, they could fly to freedom.

11. Faith: Paul Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. If I could say one thing to our little Tea Party friends, it would be this. Fundamentalism, in all its forms, is 90% of the reason the world is so terrifying. 3% is the existence of snakes. The love of our incredible dogs and cats is the closest most of us will come, on this side of eternity, to knowing the direct love of God; although cats can be so bitter, which is not the god part: the crazy Love is. Also, “Figure it out” is not a good slogan.

12. Jesus; Jesus would have even loved horrible, mealy-mouth self-obsessed you, as if you were the only person on earth. But He would hope that you would perhaps pull yourself together just the tiniest, tiniest bit–maybe have a little something to eat, and a nap.

13. Exercise: If you want to have a good life after you have grown a little less young, you must walk almost every day. There is no way around this. If you are in a wheelchair, you must do chair exercises. Every single doctor on earth will tell you this, so don’t go by what I say.

14. Death; wow. So f-ing hard to bear, when the few people you cannot live without die. You will never get over these losses, and are not supposed to. We Christians like to think death is a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live fully again in your heart, at some point, and make you smile at the MOST inappropriate times. But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. All truth is a paradox. Grief, friends, time and tears will heal you. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate you and the ground on which you walk. The first thing God says to Moses is, “Take off your shoes.” We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know.

I think that’s it, everything I know. I wish I had shoe-horned in what E.L. Doctorow said about writing: “It’s like driving at night with the headlights on. You can only see a little aways ahead of you, but you can make the whole journey that way.” I love that, because it’s teue about everything we tey. I wish I had slipped in what Ram Das said, that when all is said and done, we’re just all walking each other home. Oh, well, another time. God bless you all good.

https://www.facebook.com/AnneLamott

Why Do You Care??

Compared to 50 years ago, most of us have much more exposure to others who are “different” than we are. We have a greater ability to travel, we have a multitude of TV stations that show us people and places around the world, we have the internet and Google and social media.

So what is your perspective on those who are different? On those who look different? On those who have a different religion? On those who have a different belief system?

Do you want the freedom to have your own personal style, hold your own beliefs, build your own career, spend your free time in the manner you want, all this without someone else telling you that you are wrong and you should be doing something else? Do you want to be in charge of your own life without having to defend it?

I would guess that each of us wants our own personal freedom to decide what’s right for us.

After all, you are the only one who has lived your life and had your unique set of experiences. Only you know how you feel in any particular situation. Only you know what brings you joy and what makes you uncomfortable. Only you know what has led you to the decisions, beliefs, and mistakes that are yours alone.

So if we want that freedom for ourselves, why is it that we don’t want to give others that same freedom?

Do you find that you want everyone to be the same as you?

Do you come up with labels for people and decide that some labels are “good” and some labels are “bad”?

I run into this issue with my kids all the time. One gets totally annoyed at another for hanging out with a certain friend, not folding their clothes, sleeping too late, keeping a messy room, liking certain music, styling their hair the wrong way, what they are eating, the list goes on and on and on.

I ask them, “Why do you care?”

Now it’s one thing if one kid is imposing on another. For example, playing music too loud. Or not picking up in a bathroom that they share.

But there are plenty of times where there is no impact on the other person. The other person just doesn’t like whatever the offending thing is.

An example we are all familiar with is the opinions people have surrounding the lifestyles of LGBT persons, gay marriage, gender identity, etc. Many people still get wound up and want to label these people “wrong” and tell these people not to be who they are. WHY do they care?

This is really just an application of the Golden Rule. If you don’t want another person telling you what to do, then you can’t turn around and tell another person what they should do.

I call this reciprocity.

In a world where we increasingly have to interact with others who are different, honoring reciprocity is the key (IMHO) to everybody getting along.

This doesn’t mean there won’t be conflicts. It doesn’t mean people can’t disagree and express that. But we can respectfully agree to disagree.  And building our communication skills and getting comfortable with conflict resolution will be a big help.

This is where people get really attached to what they think is “right.” If someone strongly believes that their way is the right way, then the idea of allowing others to be different will be very difficult.

I must say that I do think it is a very good thing for an individual to spend time and think a lot about their own personal belief system and their own actions. Read, research, think, self-reflect, have good reasons for, and feel good about who you are and what you do.   But do this for YOU, not for everybody else.

There’s also the question of how to react to someone who is trying to impose their way on you. It’s the other side of reciprocity. A person sometimes needs to stand up for their own freedom to make their own choices, by not automatically following what someone else tells them to do. We need to allow others to say no and respect that.

It has to go both ways.

Next time you are offended or triggered by someone or tempted to think or say “they should”, ask yourself:

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• Is that person telling you what to wear?
• Is that person telling you what to believe?
• Is that person telling you how you should live your life?

If not, if that person is going about their own business and not imposing on you, why do you feel the need to impose your opinions on them?

And when someone says no, or maybe quietly does their own thing (that is different from what you think they should do), maybe consider that they are different than you are. And allow them to be who they are.

I’ve formed these opinions in part because of a personal situation in which I reacted to someone doing something different that I did not expect.  I did not know everything about the situation.  I was caught off-guard and reacted.  Then communication broke down and the other party still thinks I am judging, when in fact I really don’t have an opinion and want that person to be doing what they want to do.  To complicate it further, however, the other person wants to impose on me by forcing a relationship with someone with whom I am very uncomfortable.  In this situation, the old way of dealing with it is to focus on who is right and who is wrong, and who should be doing what.  From my perspective, we are just following two different paths and that’s ok.

So I have done a lot of thinking about this since, and paid attention to developing my other relationships and working on communications.  What I have found is that when you have a relationship with someone, and you both give each other room to be who you are, then you can really share everything. You can get feedback from them, which is very different than what most of us are used to. Feedback is sharing observations and thoughts, without judgment or telling someone what they should do. The other person still honors your personal freedom to make your own decisions, and you can feel safe in the relationship.

Most of us are used to the old way of interacting, so this is not an easy transition. I know that I used to think I knew what was right for other people. I have learned to let that go and I will keep working on this. It’s especially difficult with your kids, because as parents we need to guide them and the amount of guidance they need is different for each kid and changes as they grow.  My priority is to allow them to be who they want to be and to equip them to interact with the world, to give them feedback (a lot), but to let them make their own decisions and follow their own path as they move into adulthood.  They might not always do things the way I would….but of course they don’t, because they are not me.  I love them for who they are, not who I want them to be.

As always, I don’t have anything figured out for anybody else. I am working on figuring it out for me. I share because I like feedback and discussion. (I have friends that read this stuff and we discuss in person.) Writing, for me, helps me organize my thoughts, and it’s really ok with me if no one ever sees this! If that’s the case, so be it! If no one agrees, then that’s information .

It’s all good.