Passion of Expressing Ourselves

There are some important words and phrases we seem to have great difficulty with. They are everyday words that they get caught between our good intentions on one hand and our inhibitions or fear of rejection on other the other. take for example those two seldom heard but highly effective words, "I'm sorry". For many of us "I'm sorry, is a painful admission of a fault or imperfection. They imply, "I was wrong", and that's the part that seems to activate our defenses and keep us from speaking.

But "I'm sorry", doesn't need to be a vindication for one side or another. It's far more effective in making things right again in showing who was wrong. Still, the words come hard, as if saying them reveals some weakness, some vulnerability.

Just a little thought on the matter tells us the opposite is true. Being vulnerable and able to say, "I was wrong", is one of the surest signs of strength. It informs others that we are sensitive to their pain or to their mood. It's far better than putting up walls and trying to maintain the myth of being perfect. The magic words, "I'm sorry", have unlimited power to heal and restore.

There are other phases with which struggle now and then such as, "help me". This implies a need for someone Else's strength right now. A need to be together right now. No matter how independent and self-reliant we become, we will always need others. They are a source of confidence when ours is faltering. By offering us another perspective, they can help us to see more clearly. But these things are not always freely given and must often  be asked for.

We learned early in life that, "I can do it myself," was very rewarding. We were encouraged to be self-reliant and told that asking for help was a sign of weakness. We therefore find it difficult to say, "I need you". We still like to feel that we are in total control and hesitate to reach out for help.

"I don't know"' is another little phrase that comes hard to some of us. It's a curious thing the way we often need to project an image of infallibility, of always having an answer for everything. We've all encountered people like that. For whatever reason they regard "I don't know" as a personal defect, as if each question or problem in life represented a challenge to their reputations.

In a poem entitled The Rock, T.S. Elliot tell us that, "All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. Where is the wisdom we have lost in our knowledge?" Some of the wisest people I know have the fewest answers and the least amount of certainty. Perhaps they have found that true knowledge is not in the knowing but in the seeking. I'm always a little suspicious of any organization or philosophy or creed that has the answer for every question. I think it is more likely that others are struggling with the same problems and asking the same questions, and some questions may have no answers. As each of us seeks to find our own answers in life, "I don't know", might be the best place to begin.

The last of our underused phrases is really contained in part within the other three. It says what the others can only imply. The words are, "I love you". Why is it so difficult for some of us to say these three simple words? Why do we leave this phrase behind and regard it as vestige of earlier, more romantic selves? We come to believe that after a time love speaks for itself, that is something implied by a relationship: "We've been together for twenty years. If that's not love, I don't know what is." And so, sadly, the words go the way of flowers and moonlight drives and holding hands at the movies.

We forget that even the most secure among us needs reassurance from time to time. We don't realize that sometimes the other person may be feeling more remote or disconnected, or that we ourselves are becoming more complacent in our relationship. Saying, "I love you", implies that "I don't take you for granted", that the force which brought you together still keeps you together.

The space that so often expands between people is so easily bridged with the right words at the right time. As relationships and people in them inevitable change, it's important that we reaffirm that some things are constant. "I am sorry, "I need you", "I love you", are powerful ways of reinforcing this affirmation.

Passion for Communication

One of the surest expressions of love is the sharing of thoughts and feelings. Loving others is to want to understand how they think and how they feel about themselves and the world they live in. Where words fail, it's comforting to realize how many other vital and eloquent ways we have of communicating with each other.

It seems to me that if there is ever going to be peace among humans, we can't wait for total agreement-we're going to have to settle for coexistence. Since truth is so often percieved differently by each of us, it can be no other way. for all those who have good reasons for a nuclear freeze, there are as many who feel it would be a political suicide. Thousands feel that one candidate for public office is a savior, and as many are certain that he or she will lead us to ruin. I am certain that if someone were to ask us the color of a red rose at which we were all looking, there would be some who would see it not as red, but wine or purple or magneta, and be willing to argue the point to the bitter end.

Such minor disagreements can be responsible for losing friends, breaking up marriages, and on a more frightening scale, bringing on world conflicts. why do we have to fully agree with people in order to continue to love and respect them? After all, an opinion about something or someone is simply an opinion, a unique way of viewing the world. Each of us has a very personal world view; but no matter how we see something, we as people have more intrisic value than any single opinion. In fact, I make a point of seeking friends who have diverse opinions. They are the ones who are most often responsible for my changing attitudes. They keep me continually evaluating my beliefs. They are the ones who most challenge my mind and encourage my growth.

It is well to remember that a loving relationship need not be an agreeing one. We can contonue to coexist in love as long as we keep dialogue going. Perhaps if you see something as white and I see it as black, there is a meeting point, a grey area, upon which we might begin to agree. From this point we can extend the parameters of agreemenet. In the end we might never fully but we can come to understand that there are many ways of seeing things.

One of the traps we frequently fall into is the idea that arguments are either won or lost, that right or wrong can always be clearly defined by force of argument. When we dig in and argue the truth, we are mostly looking only for confirmation of our truth. Uncertainty becomes weakness and saying that the other guy might be right becomes unthinkable when we are convinced of our own rightness.

We tend to adopt fixed attitudes in ceretain areas. We cling to the rightness of our views as if they were inscribed on tablets; and in the process, confine ourselves to the limits of our own experience. I've heard arguments between people escalate to ridiculous proportions simply because they refused to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong-as if such an admission would compromise their worth as human beings-as if the maintanance of a healthy ego required constant vindication of their views. Ironically, the opposite is true. People who work hard at being infallible will inevitably learn the price of their insistence.

When we unburden ourselves of the responsibility of being right all the time, we are free to learn from others. Just the simple admission that "I might be wrong," or "You might be right," can work wonders in communication. Instead of standing alone in rightness, we can draw closer to each other by discovering common beliefs and looking for a basis for agreement. Having the strength of conviction ceases to be positive attribute when it interferes with people trying to find truth in their common experience. Besides, what does it profit you if you are right and you have won, but have lost a friend?

Complex disagreement may not be easily settled, but it is well to start negotiations free of assumptions of right and wrong. Better to start with possibility that there is a little wrong in the most right of us and a little right in the most wrong of us.

Growth and Acceptance

I agree that there is perhaps no greater joy in life than to find ways of overcoming our weaknesses. We know all about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. We seem to encounter obstacle after obstacle. Still, with hope, dignity, a little madness, and some belief in the self, we can make great strides towards achieving our goals. The greatest failure is to fail to try. Many of us have probably given up just when, with a bit more persistence and patience, we would have made it. So often when all seems lost everything points to failure, then comes the breakthrough.

Loneliness have become the great American malaisse. It seems to ignore age, gender and socioeconomic levels. Surveys tell us that over one quarter of the population suffers from chronic loneliness. It is among the leading causes of suicide. Books and magazines are consistently full of information and advice for the lonely-be more aggressive, step out and meet people, you have a right to be you, get out of that shell of your own making, celebrate life, count your lessings. Though sometimes good advice, these remedies seem to be of small comfort to the lonely.

No one needs to be told that loneliness can be very painful. In fact, it can cause us to feel almost totally devastated. It produces counter-productive feelings, discourages risk and saps emotional resources. It is not surprising that people will even elect to remain in completely unfulfilled relationships rather than risk being alone.

We all know that loneliness has little or nothing to do with being physically alone. In fact, some of the most lonely among us are constantly in crowds, surrounded by people. No matter what our situation, most of us will at one time or another experience loneliness.

few of us prepare ourselves for these possibilities. We carefully save our money for the future, we insure ourselves against economic reverses and prepare for countless unpredictable occurrences, but we do little about the time when we may have to face things alone, or fine ourselves disconnected from others.

I've spoken to hundreds of people who have told me they have suddenly been force through loneliness to struggle with feelings of emptiness and unworthiness. They discover themselves on their own - some for the first time in their lives - and have no resources to call upon to contend with it. They seem to find little inner reserve or strength, or more important, no real sense of self.

It has been found that what people do in such a situation depends more upon how they about themselves than any other single factor. It is not so much a matter of fighting loneliness as it is using the strength that comes from self-knowledge to put it into its proper perspective.

Loneliness is never pleasant. It will always require us to actively work through a period of adjustment or healing. But this time can also to be of learning and growth, for it compels us to examine and reevaluate ourselves better.

It is a pity that we often wait until loneliness is strangling us before we try to understand its complexities. Still it's understandable, since we are brought up to avoid being alone, as if it were some type of antisocial behavior. Our young lives are often spent filled with planned social activities and interactions. We are encourage to join clubs, teams, classes. We often become so busy that to find ourselves alone, faced with some nonscheduled time, is to many an almost devastating experience.

Heaven forbid that we should have an unplanned weekend! No one tells us that it's perfectly normal to want to be alone, to have private times when we can tune in to our own needs and desires, guided only by our own resources, or carried away by our spur of the moment impulses and dreams. We all need our separate worlds, apart from others, where we can quietly retire for regrouping, for getting back in touch with ourselves. We need this personal solitary place as a pleasant alternative to our more public lives. We must treasure this part of our existence as much as we do the more social part. Then, when loneliness comes, we will have that special place to fall back upon.

It is wonderful to have significant and loving people in our lives. We cannot live in complete happiness without them. But we must not allow ourselves to depend so completely upon them that we lose our sense of separateness. There should be always be an inner place we can count on that it is solely ours.

To conquer loneliness we shall each other have to assume the sacred responsibility of becoming a complete person. And most of all, to define ourselves without always including someone else in the definition.

Self Respect

William James once wrote, "probably a crab would be filled with a personal sense of outrage if it could hear us class it without apology, as a crustacean, and thus dismiss it. 'I am no such thing,' it would say;'I am myself, myself alone'."

The human spirit is such that it will defy every effort to lump it into categories, whether it is done for convenience or by design. It is our very uniqueness, our individual identity that transcends our short existence here and therefore must always be preserved.

One of the most difficult things for the human mind to comprehend is that life moves on even though many of us don't seem to be fully aware of it. This lack of consciousness is often responsible for causing many of us to waste a great portion of our lives. We lose much of our childhood, our adolescence, our adulthood, our middle age, simply because we spend so much time living in the future. The tragedy is that what is lost is gone forever. None of us has been able to relive the past or change our transgressions.

Most of us live for tomorrow. We have convinced ourselves that it will be better, that we will be richer, wiser and more secure. This may be pleasant to contemplate, but also costly if it means losing even a moment of our present.

I know we are brought up to work hard, to save our money and invest in the future. in this way, we're told, someday we will be able to enjoy what we dream about. The sad part is that too often by the time we reach those golden years, we no longer need the same things or we're too tired, too ill, too set in our ways to enjoy them.

How many trips have we postponed until some indefinite time, only because they seemed too strenuous or stressful? how many possibilities of happiness have we missed because we waited for a more convenient moment? how many people have we failed to celebrate because we thought we'd have them forever?

Recently at a cafeteria I sat at the counter next to a man, who appeared to have been crying, his sadness was obvious, written all over his face, so I broke a conversation with him and he immediately started letting out his frustration, his anger, his pain and his sorrow, he told me that his wife, who had recently passed away, wanted to visit her relatives in Scotland, the country of her parents' birth. It was her only wish. Though they could certainly afford to go, this man thought it was a rather frivolous way to spend money. There was always a less expensive place to go, the mortgage to be paid, the need for a new lawn mower or plans for the children's education.

Now the house is paid for, has his new lawn mower, the children have all been educated and are married and on their own. His wife's special dream was never realized. She died few months ago. He's alone with his accumulated things. it pained me to hear him lament, "I wish I had....," as we so often do in hindsight.

I am not suggesting that we should be spendthrifts of completely self-indulgent, or that we fail to plan sensibly for our future. I'm simply saying that we all have present needs and that too often they become permanent gaps in our lives when they are not realized. We all need a little frivolity and self-indulgence from time to time.

Though frowned upon in our culture, pampering ourselves now and then seems to me a healthful thing. Why should it cause us to feel a sense of selfishness and guilt, specially when these feelings take all the fun out of it? We all know the joy of buying that expensive pair of shoes we love so much, or having dinner in that elegant restaurant we read about, or sending flowers or gifts for no reason other than the special joy it will bring to someone.

It's sad to hear things such as -
"People only send me flowers when I'm ill, or in a hospital when I'm too distracted to enjoy them. And how sad that the day I recieve the most flowers i won't even see them. Who needs flowers after you're dead? I get presents on my birthday or the usual holidays, but I'd  forego these for a surprise gift sometime-just a sign that someone is thinking about me when they don't really have to."

"We should have taken that trip last year. Now he/she is in the hospital and we may never be able to do it."

"I should have told her i loved her while she was still here."

To pass up or ignore the possibilities of present laughter, to fill our lives with plans for some nebulous tomorrow, is to court the possibility of permanent, irreparable loss. Time is limited, even for the youngest of us. It is something we can control and enhance with our expressions of love and caring now. Such opportunities come only so often in a lifetime. To suggest that we all have a right to be pampered now and again without the usual accompanying feeling of guilt is not asking too much.

We often spend our lifetime doing the sensible thing, mostly for the welfare of others. Common sense, self-denial, prudence _these things certainly have their place as long as they don't become constants in our life. We all need frequent doses of "I deserve this." Aside from what immediate happiness it brings to us, it is also a basic reminder that "I like me and I'm worth it."