On Getting It - Today

“In the long run we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving.” -Sheldon Kopp

The subject of getting and giving has been high on my mind the past couple of weeks as I'm transitioning out of the job I've had for the past couple of years and beginning to look for something new. A lot of my thinking has revolved around how happy I'll be when my future (or least immediate financial future) is a little more settled and on stable ground. I have to remind myself that maybe I'm missing the point. 

My friend and former pastor Mary Manin Morrissey wrote this in an email the other day:

“Every so often, I am reminded of the Thornton Wilder play, "Our Town," where Emily has passed on to the next realm.  She is given the opportunity to relive one day of her life, and she chooses her twelfth birthday.  From the higher realm, she views her life as she was at twelve.

Emily comes down the stairs of the house where she was raised and her family is all busy doing what they do.  The kids are playing, her father is doing his thing and her mother is in the kitchen cooking.   There’s the smell of the coffee, the sound of the toast being buttered and the laughter all around. There are flowers in the yard with the sun shining through -- it’s a little bit misty and she just sees life happening.

She asks, Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute?"

The Narrator responds, “No, not really. Saints and poets perhaps. Sometimes.”

What a great question to ask ourselves. Do I really recognize how wonderful my life is while I’m living the minute-to-minute daily grind?

I suspect if you’re like me (and perhaps the majority of us) you don’t live in that appreciation. It might occur in glimmers or glimpses now and then, especially if something wonderful or cool happens, but on the days when we deal with the routine trials, tribulations and junk, on the days when we have to do the laundry and gas up the car – we don’t feel that our life is very wonderful.

What’s odd (to me) is that we cling so tightly to our resistance to whatever is happening. It fascinates me how often we focus on what’s happening that we don’t like rather than the sparkles of good dusted through our day. We even rationalize our clinging with a fear that tells us to hold on for dear life or something else bad might happen. We don’t want things to get worse.

Fear tells us to cling to the people we love so that we will not lose them. Fear tells us not to share what we have or else we might not have enough. Fear tells us not to spend any money because we might need what we give up.

Fear is the voice that says, “Don’t let go,” but it’s only when we release and free our arms that we’re ready to receive. It’s only when we empty the cup that we can put something new into it - It’s only when we release our tight, deathlike grasp on our idea that things should be different than how they are, that we can recognize the smell of coffee brewing, or flowers, or the sunlight filtering through the trees in the yard. And appreciate those things for the wonders they are.

It’s not because giving always equals getting – a cosmic tit-for-tat - It’s because we generally don’t open ourselves to what might be, to potentials -  when we’re cowering in fear, tightly clutching our ideas about what should be…or how things should be different. 

There is always going to be the possibility of loss. Some risks don’t pay off, and there’s no way to get around that. But the only way to get to the ones that do pay off is to decide the possibility is worth the risk – give right now a chance. You might be amazed at what you get.