We Deceive Ourselves

It never ceases to amaze me how elastic many people become when faced with the simple truths of their lives.  Even when those truths seem to me as plain as the noses on their faces, the solutions to better, happier, more productive lives often seem to involve a set of mental calisthenics worthy of Rube Goldberg--with three words leading the routine:   "If only THEY..."

Why is it always someone else's fault when things aren't working out the way we'd hoped?

Now, truth be told, there are LOTS of times in life when we are justified in putting the blame for our unrealized potential squarely on the shoulders of others.  After all, we have as much control over how others treat us as they have over how we....um...er...treat them.  But were I a gambling man, I might wager that more often than we imagine, the keys to a happy and contented life are securely held in our own hands. 

Maybe it just seems too easy. 

So what is it that's holding you back?  Did someone say something that hurt?  Are you the victim of abuse or cruelty?  Is it time to share your story and take back the power they've stolen from you?

And what of those calisthenics you may have been doing?  Have you been bending over backwards to blame others for your own inaction?  Have you handed the author's pen to another and let them write YOUR story?

From what I hear, the truth will set you free.

My thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing!  Feel free to pass these "Acorns" along, and invite others to read and subscribe at www.realacorns.blogspot.com.

Happy spring!

Steve Fiechter

(c) Fiechter, 2015

    

Another Cat Story

He arrived as others had--uninvited but without a choice.  Someone moved and he was left behind--a sad story with no place to go.  Once upon a time he'd been well cared-for, warm and dry and fed.  Now the dangerous streets were his home--hungry and filthy and frightened.

This time it didn't take much convincing.  He would be better off in a home he hadn't chosen.  At least it was warm, and there was food.  The big cats who lived there were OK--maybe a little too cheerful, a little too touchy-feely....small price to pay.

It's been a couple of years now.  The once-nameless, homeless cat dressed in a ragged and flea-bitten suit is now sleek and shiny in his fancy tuxedo.  Quite a looker, with an appetite to match.  He's sitting under my chair as I write this, and I can hear him purring for no particular reason--or maybe for every reason. 

As I hear the strains of his song, I think how much we have in common--and wonder if my gratitude will ever match his.

Thanks for reading, sharing, caring!  Feel free to invite others to read--pass along a link or connect them with the blog:  www.realacorns.blogspot.com

(c) Fiechter, 2015

J'accuse!

As I grow a bit longer in the tooth I'm noticing something:  my memory isn't what it used to be.

It's typical, from what I hear.  As time passes, the human brain collects more and more information and so it takes a bit longer to sort through and process all of the data--sometimes things even get lost.

One thing it seems I haven't lost is my ability to swiftly accuse others.

It's only a pair of scissors, frequently used but ALWAYS returned to the same spot.  This time, as I reached for them, they weren't there. 

"Where did you put my scissors?"

The question flew out of my mouth without a moment's hesitation.  I knew beyond any doubt that I ALWAYS put those scissors back in the same place, and now they weren't there.  What other explanation could there be?  Someone else took them.

I must admit, even I was astonished at the speed of my accusation.  I just KNEW, and so I got to stew.  I was annoyed.  I needed my scissors.  I wanted my scissors...and I wanted them to be where I KNEW they should be!  Why would he take them and not put them back?  Where could he have left them?  Why did he need MY special scissors, anyway?

After a somewhat awkward confrontation, a denial of guilt, and a new search, I found the scissors--right where I'd left them.

I'm happy to report that my apology has been accepted.  Now I'm just wondering what other accusations, great and small, I've cast on others while I should have been pointing that finger at the mirror.

(c) Fiechter

Thanks for reading...feel free to share!  Read previous posts or subscribe to get these in your email inbox at www.realacorns.blogspot.com.

I Was There

The phone call from the Vice-Principal came at the last minute, and with apologies:

"Would you and your parents be able to be at the Senior Awards Ceremony this evening?"  Somehow my name had been left off the invitation list.

I had a hunch I knew what the award would be and I dreaded it.

Sure enough, as I sat biting my nails through the ceremony, watching my classmates receive honors for excellence in a variety of academic pursuits, the time finally arrived and my name was called.  I won:

Perfect Attendance.

That's right!  While my peers were taking home plaques and trophies in Art and English and Science and Math, I won an award for the unthinkable--I showed up every day.  I was presented a plaque over my protests:  "I'm SURE I was absent once in sophomore year!"

How would I ever live it down?  Seriously, High School had been an experience I was ready to forget; this would be the final humiliation, adding insult to injury.  To this day my face reddens when I think about it.

Now that I think about it, though, it's really OK.  In fact, I'm kind of proud of it.  After all, what more can really be expected of any of us than to simply show up and be ourselves?  For a deeply closeted, somewhat chubby, clumsy and red-faced teen it may have been a disaster.  But in the end, to have had the opportunity to live a full life and to have actually shown up for it every day is the greatest reward.

Carpe diem...there will only ever be one today.  Hope to see you there!

Stardust Memories

This week, just as it does every week, Wednesday will come and go.  But for a few, this one will be different.  They'll use this Wednesday to pause and to reflect, to look back and to look ahead...and to consider their place in the grand scheme of things.  Having set aside the revelry of a Fat Tuesday, they will gather with others of a like mind to practice old rituals--you may even see them with black smudges on their foreheads, mishapen and misunderstood.

"Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."

No matter how you look at it, there's no escaping the inevitable: the party will end and we will all return to the dust from which we were formed.  Whether you are one to believe there's something more or not, the inescapable truth is that life as each of us knows it is coming to an end--sooner than later.  A smudge of ash is a reminder that nothing lasts forever.  We will all die.

But before we allow that sadness to define us, it might be important to consider that the dust from which we are made--the dust to which we will return--is the very same dust that makes up the whole of what is--everything we can see and everything we can't:  Stardust. 

It puts a whole new (star)light on things, doesn't it?  We are made from all that was and all that is and all that will be--which sounds pretty hopeful to me.

Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain...

Member

Sometimes I sit, waiting to be rescued--by someone with a better idea, someone with a better opportunity, a better job, a better something or other...someone who will notice me and acknowledge my greatness--until it dawns on me that the only person who is going to do that is me.

Tradition tells us that we are all valued and needed--that there is no one part of the body that is greater or more important than another.  Yet how often do we sit quietly waiting, as if the eye will tell the foot when it's time to start walking, or the hand will tell the mouth when it's the right time to speak, or another brain will stop by to rescue us from our ennui.   But that's not how it works, friends, and deep inside we all know it.  That's not how it works in the Body and that's not how it works in the world.  In the Body, each part knows its role and does its task, orchestrated by a subconscious energy that coordinates our efforts and keeps us moving forward.  The mouth knows its job without the foot telling it (though at times that foot inserts itself....but that's another story).  The ear knows when it's time to listen, even if the mouth doesn't always know when to stop.  And those hands really do know the right thing to do, even if, more often than not, we find them in the cookie jar. 

So the next time you're sitting around waiting for instructions or an engraved invitation to action, remember this--you already know what you can be doing: walking with the troubled, offering a hand to those in need, listening with a caring heart, and speaking the truth in love.

There's More

Maybe you read it, too.  Hurtling through space, NASA's Kepler Telescope has sent back images of an ancient solar system; a sun with circling planets similar in many ways to our own.

It's not all that far away, either--only about 117 light years.  Why, that's practically around the corner!  Yet it's not its close proximity to us that is the remarkable thing about this neighboring solar system, but how old it is.  Scientists at the University of Birmingham (England...that's even closer--just across the pond!) are saying somewhere around 11 billion years old.  I thought I was getting old!  In comparison, the Earth is a relative teenager: by the time our Earth was formed, the planets in this newly discovered but far from new solar system were already older than the earth is now (about 4.5 billion years old...give or take).

Whether old or new, near or far, it all reminds me that my own little world is kind of small.  I tend to think and live within my own self-drawn boundaries, a relatively miniscule sphere of influence and activity, as if this is all there is.  That's kind of sad, really.  Because, in reality, there is so much more--much of which--MOST of which has yet to be discovered.

Science is a wonder.  It continues to insist that there is more, and continues to prove it, too.  Religion, on the other hand, more often closes rank on a rule-based world in which all that exists is already well-defined.  No wonder the two often clash, and that's too bad.  Because GOOD religion is not incompatible with science--in fact it seeks to do the very same things that science does: to live in the mystery while searching for greater understanding.  The challenge, for those religiously oriented, is to steer far and wide from any notion that we have it all figured out.  Because as soon as we say "we know it all" a new discovery will remind us that we don't...not even close.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.