They call me a writer at work now. I am getting used to that. I have wanted to be one and have been avoiding being one all of my life. I am afraid of it. As I am afraid of living in Arkansas again, even though I want it badly, both to live there again and to be a writer. I am sure I am afraid of failure or of it not living up to my imaginations of it. I have been blessed with imagination. I love stories. I know this comes from a Grandmother who loved stories too and had children who also love to read because she read to them. One of them, an Uncle, even writes. So, I cannot say I am unique. I come from a line of readers and suckers for a story. I even read bad ones, knowing their bad, just to see how they will end. It is an addiction and a fear. Why else would I run from it?
One of the things I am learning about myself is my adversity to failure. I am learning that the more you resist it, the more difficult it becomes to succeed at anything. I hate to go all Zen on you all, but there is something for me about being in my 30s and being in transition that gets me spouting Zen lately. So the travel blog, until I travel again soon, means mind travel today. Zen travel. We go where the thoughts go and my husband can tell you, my thoughts wind about a bit.
And lately, one of my ideas has been the idea of reflection. I tried to explain this epiphany to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law one Sunday a few weeks back and I think I pretty much failed. But that was good. I learned about what I thought about it when I failed to communicate it and I heard what they thought about. Hearing that and reflecting on that, made me clearer. And I think that failure will make this blog post better. But, I will let you decide. You will know better than I if I am making sense.
I told them that it seemed to me lately that reflection was key. I could not say what it was key to exactly, not at the time, but now I think I meant this: reflection is the key to knowing ourselves, to learning about ourselves, and when we do this and know/learn this we can freely, mindfully act like who we truly are. When we know how and why we act the way we do, and see how it affects others, we gain a knowledge that is necessary to becoming better humans and even happier human beings. I think.
Blame Plato’s fabulous cave analogy and that I had to teach it this Fall. He got me thinking about what makes us enlightened, educated, virtuous people. And Gretchen Rubin has me thinking about what makes us happy—what makes me happy. I know that knowing something makes me happy. That moment in reading, studying, debating with others, when I make a connection or have an epiphany, that kept me in school for years and years. I wrote about it in my German classes when they asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I wrote in German: I want to work at a university and share ideas with people.
Eureka! That is me. Sharing ideas and hearing ideas is my happiness drug. Reflection though. That took a while to understand. I knew it was important or I wouldn’t have made my students do it, but I thought it was a source for ideas. It is really a source of knowledge about who I am and about what I know and learn and about how I know and learn. It leads to better actions. And, for me, it means a process of seeking enlightenment.
What we do with our knowledge matters. What we do with it to make ourselves better people affects others. They can become happier because of us or sadder. No matter, we are not in some vacuum all alone acting only on ourselves. We just aren’t. So, knowledge and reflection can help us make others happier and thus make ourselves happier. Reflection leads us to understand ourselves and how we interact with others. It leads us to understand ourselves and thus others.
I think that is what I learned. I want to hear what others say and pass that one on. Since I am lacking students, I am thinking about our future as parents and that that lesson might be a valuable one to pass one to children. If they could think about themselves as a part of a whole world, how interesting, diverse, and global would their view of the world become? And how would that impact the decisions they make about what they do, or well do? It sounds like it could be promising. It might make them less scared of failure. They would see more than 2 options. When I only see 2 options, then life is scary and what I want gets buried in the fear.
But, travel and reflection and words (the literature of others that I read and the literature I attempt to write) are teaching me to stop the fear cycle and move through life with the feelings of purpose, opportunity, and hope even when I fail. I just must remember: reflection is the key…even to remembering this post when I too tired to pause and to reflect.
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