Suffering

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint.  - Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491 - 1556), Memorial Day July 31

A friend of mine posted this today to which I responded “interesting.”

Suffering is such a broad word to use.  It means many things to many people.  Some of us think of suffering from financial strains, but when compared with the poverty and famine in third world countries, do we really suffer here in the United States when most of us really live beyond our means and have many things we do not need but want.  That is not suffering from anything but our own poor choices.  The people in the third world countries suffer in ways in which we cannot imagine.  There are many more examples of suffering that are beyond our control compared to suffering that we bring upon ourselves by our poor choices.

I think that when we think of suffering with respect to this statement by St. Ignatius, we need to really examine WHO is responsible for our suffering.  I do think there are circumstances which make us likely to be inclined to remain in bad situations which cause of to appear to choose suffering…being raised in a poor home environment is highly detrimental to children and they have absolutely no control over that. Actual neurological changes happen to the brain and nervous system as it develops in children and that cannot be undone.  Those things impact personality, coping skills, and decision making.   I think we DO have the power to make the choice to remove ourselves from that suffering, but it is just not as easy or natural as it is…it is genuinely nerve-racking.  So, it is like two kinds of suffering at once.

Anyways, my friend said, “I think we (if we wish) can learn to become better people because of the events of our life whether it be bad (suffering) or good (laughter).   As Mary said in the bible she kept all of these things in her heart pondering them. We ponder on the things that happened and we can then make the best of them. These are the things that move us the deepest.”  I agree.  I write about many of them in my life. I always try to find the messages. I think if we can find the messages in the bad things, then we can at least make something good out of the suffering. Sometimes, we have to really look hard and sometimes, it takes time and distance to allow for the reflection to occur because while in the heat of the suffering, our minds and hearts are clouded with pain. Sometimes distance and time gives us what we need to see things more clearly and quite often, we add to our understanding of something as time goes on.  And maybe one day, we can truly find peace.

Patience on the Journey...Goals Part III

“Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.” ~ Joyce Meyer

In “Choose Your Own Adventure: Goals Part II”, I wrote about life’s journey being like a choose your own adventure book were the reader (journey taker) is exposed to information and then at the end of the chapter (checkpoint), the individual makes a decision about the new direction the adventure should take.

Today, I am thinking about how sometimes, the choices at the end of the chapter are not necessarily anything we would prefer but the only things available to us.  Or perhaps, they both seem good but once we make them, as the journey unfolds, things don’t turn out as well as we may have hoped with the choice we made.  A third option, is that there is one clear choice to make but once the journey unfolds, the other choice although less appealing back then would have been the wiser one in the long run.  So many possibilities.

The story may not be as pleasant as we thought it would be but we have no choice but to see it through to the next check point.  Some chapters may be longer than others and they journey may seem painfully slow in getting to the next checkpoint…the next place in which we can choose what to do next.   If we rush ahead, we may miss out on relevant details or make mistakes that could impact things in the other lives—the people in OUR lives.  The decisions we make impact those around us who move in the same journey space as us.

Life’s journey has many paces from checkpoint to checkpoint.  Some chapters are longer than others.  Some are not as exciting as others.  Some are full of difficult plot lines.  The long ones, the less exciting ones, the difficult plots lines—those are hard work.  Sometimes we choose wrong.  In a choose your own adventure book, the reader has the freedom to go back and make a “do over” but in life, we don’t have that option.  We have to see our decisions through to the next checkpoint.  There is no going back.

I think that one of the most difficult things in life is having the patience to get from checkpoint to checkpoint when we are not satisfied with where we are in the moment.  It takes a great deal of will power to not look back at what we miss from our past or what we might have in our future. It also takes a lot of work to find the good things when things seem so dark but it has to be done because if it is not, the passage of time to the next check point just seems that much longer and painful.

Always Room for One More Dream

"There are several stages in the evolution of a garden and gardener. It is only when the last stage is reached that all this material is seen as color on a palette with which to paint a picture, a picture never quite finished, but always having room in it for one more dream." ...Marie Aull

Gardens and gardeners...flowers as paint on a palette with which to paint a picture...one that is never finished...a beautiful thought Marie Aull gives us when thinking of gardens as palettes with which to paint pictures with room for dreams. I was there yesterday..in Marie Aull's garden..and I felt as if I had walked into my dream.

Wanting to be a writer, I always imagined my writing place as exactly that. Behind the bench in the photo, a stream runs...listening to the soft sounds of the water flowing...water is soothing, healing. A canopy of trees provides shade from the heat of the sun just above the bench while sun is allowed through in the grassier areas of the gardens. Flower beds are in areas and blooms can be seen in all four seasons of the year. Her home sits upon the hill to the right of the bench overlooking the gardens. Windows surround the home so she could enjoy her garden view. Marie lived to be 105.

I think that perhaps a writer is somewhat like a gardener...the book is the garden...words are the flowers....and the picture is the story. And even though a book has and ending, the story does not necessarily end...the characters live on. Books also can have an impact on the reader that never ends... And as for dreams...Marsha Norman said that "Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you."

So, I do think that gardeners/gardens are like writers/books....and I do think that Marie Aull's garden is a place where there is not just a wonderful palette, but a breath taking studio with which to paint pictures where there is always room for one more dream.

 

It's Nice to be Missed

“It is nice to be missed.”  Someone used to say that to me when I would tell them I missed them…  Telling someone you were missed lets them know so many things.  It tells them that they are important to you, their place in your life holds meaning and that during time apart, there were moments when that vacancy was felt.  The feeling we get when we miss someone is inside of us.  It is only us who know it is there.  It is not until we verbalize those feelings to the other person, the one whom we are missing, that we have unleashed the positive energy from the feeling of missing someone.  If we never tell them they were missed, how do they know they are important?  A person’s importance and value to us should never be left to assumptions in my opinion.  I myself am so full of doubts, I tend to think if I don’t hear it said, see it in writing, then I am inconsequential…that, I know has a lot to do with my past…  My friend is right…it is nice to be missed.  I think the ones who know they are missed are lucky to know it—it gives them value and people need to feel a little bit valued from time to time.

Overachieving vs. Exceeding Expectations

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”  ~ John Quincy Adams

“You are an overachiever.”  I have heard it a thousand times.  It is as if it is a dirty word.  It is as if it is a bad thing.  And to be honest, I just don’t even understand the word and I really don’t understand how what I really think it is .is a bad thing.

According to the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, achieving means to carry out successfully and the appropriate usage of over in this case is “beyond some quantity, limit, or norm, often by a specified amount or to a specified degree. ”The dictionary defines overachieve (according to dictionary.com) as:

1.  to perform, especially academically, above the potential indicated by tests of one's mental ability or aptitude.
2. to perform better or achieve more than expected, especially by others.

I suppose it is possible for one to derive those definitions when combining the meanings of the definitions of achieve and over. Definition two here, though, hits the nail on the head when it states “especially by others.”  The problem with the word overachieving is that it is often used to criticize others in the academic field and the basis for judgment of whether one has overachieved is external not internal.  Just who is anyone else to determine where someone else’s level of achievement should cease or end is?

I say that the word overachieve is used to criticize others in the academic field because in my experience, it has never been said to me in a positive way.  It often comes from peers and in a snide and critical manner accompanied by rolling the eyes and some other comments about the waste of time I put into my work.

Personally, I think that my work is a representation of my ability and anything less would be me underachieving.  I am not quite certain why I should let the expectations of someone else limit my ability.  I would like the work that I do display what my potential is and that is not always what is expected by our professors, teachers, or bosses.  So, I may just be mincing words, but I would prefer to say that I have merely achieved to MY ability while I may have exceeded someone else’s expectations.  I would like to be the one to determine what my ability is.  It is after all what I am capable of and I can’t seem to fathom how anyone else can determine if I have gone “over” my own ability.

Truly, I thinking ability is ability and it can improve with education, practice, time, patience, dedication and choice.  Any level of achievement we reach, if we try our best, is our true level of achievement…we go “over” nothing.  We just exceed expectations of requirements placed by others.

We never hear of Olympic track athletes who break Olympic records or world records being snidely called overachievers when all they had to do is win the race to earn the gold medal.  We recognize their efforts and dedication for training and now they have a new level of achievement.

It is a different story in academia, however.  I can’t help but think that in some cases, those who use the word overachiever in a negative way (I am not sure that it is truly intended to be used only in such a way) do so to help relieve themselves of feeling guilt for perhaps not having chosen to do their personal best or just not doing the work at all the way it was intended to be done and “faking it.”

I think that in everything we do, we have to examine the expectations put before us and determine if we want to use them as the bar at which to represent ourselves.  Achievement is something that is determined by us and should therefore be measured internally…not externally.  No one has the right to say that we have overachieved.  Only we can determine what we are capable of achieving.  Expectations are set externally…we can exceed them.
I am just an achiever…I choose to achieve to my ability.