"You Spot It, You Got It" 12Sept18

There are a couple things I really despise about being on this path of becoming more awakened or more conscious.  The first one is probably 'If You Spot It, You Got It'.  I have no idea where I heard that first.  I know I've heard the idea over and over again, through the years. It lurks in the back of my mind, just waiting for me to be irritated at someone or something, or annoyed because someone else doesn't do what they say they will, or live up to some agreement that I think they/we made.  One of my hottest hot buttons is when I feel like someone is acting 'out of integrity'.  If I'm present enough in the moment of the situation, I stuff my momentary reaction until I have a chance to mull it over in depth and detail.  What I usually discover, upon reflection, is that whether another is acting in integrity or not, that's not in my control.  What is in my control is when I become conscious that I have acted out of integrity or out of alignment with my values and ideals, and that is what is in my control to change. Ahhh....  That self-responsibility clause that is just so ...  freakishly annoying, and so ever-present.

This week, one of the shipments that showed up in my mailbox from Amazon was a book calledThe Family Virtues Guidewritten by a couple of psychologists, published in 1997.   When I opened the package, I wondered what I was thinking when I had so intentionally clicked that 'buy now' button.  So, I skimmed through it last night, marveling at how even the notion of virtues seems to have gotten lost, or at least significantly transformed, in the last 20 years.

This book lists 52 virtues and a way that a family, or any group I suppose, could work with one each week and pay attention to how they enact and experience the highlighted virtue during the week.  Is there something quaint or archaic about ... caring, cleanliness, compassion, confidence, consideration, courage, courtesy and creativity as virtues, or values?  Is it that the prospect of living out of our virtues-- requiring a certain amount of familiarity with, and trust that, life is for us, for our benefit--seems to be in such short supply? What about tact, thankfulness, tolerance, trust, trustworthiness and truthfulness?

Part of me wonders if we still have the capacity and wherewithal to be that present to/with ourselves. The rest of me knows that we do, and we get to continuously and perpetually choose and re-choose whether to live from that consciousness, or not. This isn't a new issue, though it seems like it. A snippet of a poem by William Wordsworth, written sometime between 1800 and 1850, came to mind.  It will be familiar to you, too.  "The world is too much with us, late and soon.  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" and from our old friend Henry David Thoreau (in the chapter "Economy" from Walden), "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. ... A stereotyped by unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.  But there is no play in them..."

I know that we do have the capacity within ourselves to be self-reflective, to recognize the good of the many also serves the individual good, once we get a broad enough perspective, and own up to our own selfish tendencies and motives. Dr Martin Luther King spoke/wrote, in his sermon Loving Your Enemies(you'll recognize this too), "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. ... Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies -- or else?"  Of course, he was writing during the Cold War, and we seemed on the abyss of worldwide annihilation.  Perhaps, still true. 

And yet I see lights in the darkness when I choose to look for them and focus my intention and my resolve on upholding them, enlivening them and becoming them.  One such 'light' is Liz Kleinrock, who taught 4th grade in a charter school in Los Angeles and taught her kids about how to be an ally or an advocate instead of an uncomfortable or unconscious bystander.  (www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=8195)  From Stoic philosopher Seneca, "The rational soul is stronger than any kind of fortune -- from its own share it guides its affairs here or there, and is itself the cause of a happy or miserable life."  So let's hear it for continuing to be attentive to our own lives, and striving to become the kinds of individuals who intentionally create the lives they choose.