Underachievement

Two or three times in the last several months I’ve said to my therapist that I’m an underachiever. Each time she’s given me an odd look, one I can’t quite interpret, but that makes me feel like I’ve said something terribly inappropriate. I had been ignoring that look, until recently.

Finally though, I understand. And I realize that I’ve been taking to heart only part of what my brain understands as the truth. That truth is, I’m fine as I am. That part of me that felt like an underachiever thought I should be, by now, a star in the business world, or a writer with a Pulitzer prize, or…well…almost any contemporary image of a successful person.

I look back over my life and think that, if I’d just had more discipline, or more guidance, or more money, or more something, then I’d be that hugely successful person. Perhaps. But that’s not only beside the point, but immaterial, and probably totally wrong.

The point is, I am who I am. I love to read, and write, to think and teach. I don’t like to compete, and the thought of clawing and grabbing my way to the top of anything makes me shudder. I don’t have a big voice; my voice is for small stories and quiet things. I love a conversation with one or two people rather than a lecture to a hall full of faces. I need peace in my life rather than living at a harried go-go-go pace.

Nonetheless, when I decide to do something, I do it. I’ve gone back to school and finished my degree, gone through an Outward Bound sailing course, traveled to Haiti to do medical mission work, taken an accredited course in clinical pastoral education. None of them was easy to accomplish. And all disparate things, I agree, not oriented toward any particular goal. But all things I wanted to do, decided to do, then did.

In the long run your idea of achievement has to be yours, just as my idea of achievement is mine. The trick is to be careful, thoughtful, about what achievement really means to you and your life. For one person it’s an acre of tomato plants. For another it’s one tomato plant in a pot on the deck. Neither one should strive for the other’s achievement. That’s betraying you and leads only to a miserable existence full of might have, should have, could have.

Star Stuff

I’ve been thinking of star stuff today. Yup, star stuff. Specifically, the bits and pieces of stars that are in you and me. You know how that happened, don’t you? A star exploded somewhere in the universe, and bits of it, stardust if you will, happened to find our Earth, carried on the solar winds maybe, or picked up by a comet, then left behind as it eroded away while passing near us. And some of those bits landed, in the oceans, or on the land, eventually being incorporated into a plant, or a fish, or a mollusk, or maybe even a cow, which you (and I) ate. Then it became something to fuel us, or perhaps it became a building block in the body. One way or another, we have stardust in us (and dog poop too, if you think about it, but let’s not right now).

Thich Nhat Hanh says that one can look at a piece of paper and see the tree it was made from. And then one can see the seed the tree grew from, and the soil that fed that tree, and the animals and plants that died and became the soil. All these things are really there in that piece of paper. It is an endless cycle, the beauty of which makes me catch my breath in wonder. I wonder at the thought that I might have, in this very body, atoms that may have been part of a woman of ancient, ancient times, or a fern not seen in many millions of years or, of course, a star.

I could almost call this a kind of reincarnation. Matter used over and over again, becoming stars and planets and trees and snails and people. It fuels a question: what (and where) have I been, and what will I, all my bits, become next? And it speaks to the utter and never-ending connection between all things, large and small, animate and inanimate.

I have handled fossils that might be millions of years old. I’ve seen (and touched, but don’t tell the museum docents) meteorites that have been in parts of our galaxy, maybe even the universe, places I can’t even imagine. Then, touching a meteorite, I thought I might be touching star stuff. Now I understand that I was, but in every moment, as I type on my keyboard, or twine my fingers together while I think, and even as I breathe, I’m still touching stardust.

Further Reflections on the New Year

I’ve read so many self-help books, so many do-it-yourself fix-me books. But very few have made any lasting impression. Why I wonder? Those that speak to a specific task – quitting smoking, getting exercise, eating in more healthy ways – do indeed give me tips and ideas about how to accomplish any of that. Those that speak to more esoteric ideas – changing my attitude, reinventing my life – often leave me feeling stupid and inadequate. 

I’ve recently realized that I’m narrowing my reading, leaving much of the DIY stuff behind, reading only those who tell me that who I am now is a good thing. Thich Nhat Hanh springs to mind. Leo Baubata (zenhabits.net). Henri Nouwen. These authors advocate change, it’s true, and tell you how to achieve it. But, for the most part, they accept the fact that I am I, and while not without fault, there’s some sort of perfection in that. 

So what does this have to do with the New Year? I’ve already told you my resolution for this year – to look forward, rather than back. That’s it. No elaborate plans for my weight, my smoking, my writing. I begin to think that if I let go of the need to make huge changes, I may be able to start making some of the small changes that are important to me. So here I am, writing a little bit. A good change. No real preparation, no “getting my mind right,” just doing. 

Perhaps that’s the secret. Just doing. A little here, and a little there. I appended a poem to my last post – that took huge courage on my part. Just to let a few people see it was very scary. But less scary to have 10 or 12 people read it, than to think about hundreds of people seeing it. 

Earlier this week I gathered my courage and called an acquaintance to ask for his help in my job search (which he was more than willing to give). I could not have done that a year ago. So I am changing, but on my schedule, with my needs in mind, and in ways that make sense to me and don’t abandon the “who” that I already am. 

I wish everyone a New Year filled with discovery of their true selves, and happiness for what has been, and what will come. 

Thinking of Summer

In the shade,
Watching sheets of sun
Illuminating other places.

Musing on the Sea, and a New Year

I went to the sea yesterday, as I often do on New Year's Day, to give my soul a breath of fresh air, and to reconnect with the ocean. I'd been gone too long. I'm living some little way from the coast now, and find it harder and harder to get there, between my schedule and the price of gas. So easy to forget what the important things are in a busy life. I miss the ocean.

It's where I write more easily, where I breath deeply and fully, where I remember all the living things that surround me – birds, fish, animals, people. It's as if I step into a whole new world. And it's a place where I remember who I am, what's important to me, what I want to be and do in my life.

It is a dangerous place. I hear, almost always, a call to join it, to walk in, submerge myself, the siren song that says my blood is made of ocean, and must go back to it. How tempting, on those dark days, to set all else aside and become the sea. And this very strange dichotomy, because that same sea fills me with life, courage, even joy.

I love the colors of ocean. The days when the sun, sparkling as it sets, spreads a silver sequined gown over the water. Or the times when the sea seems sullen, gray, angry, restless. The calm of the water when the tide turns, and everything seems to halt for just a bit while the sea gathers itself, preparing to hurl itself up or down the shore. And the impossible blues and greens on a sunny spring day, as she trumpets her beauty.

It seems fitting to start the first day of a new year where I'm happiest. While to many this first day may seem insignificant (it is after all, simply another day on the calendar), to me there is a particular feel to it, a sense of possibility that buoys and invigorates me. One cannot slough off the happenings of a previous year, but it is possible to narrow one's vision, to look ahead instead of back, and to reorient one's life to a small extent.

This is my New Year's resolution: to look ahead instead of back. I can't forget, but it is perhaps time to set aside mourning, sadness, loss. I remain intensely grateful for all the good in my life, the people and events that have brought me here today. I was lucky to be loved, even for a little while, and to give love.


OCEAN

For just a moment,
    on the shore,
I understood Ocean as killer;
Knew why suicides submerge themselves.
The strange dichotomy:
     Mother, lover, muse:
    Ancient temptress.