Are you addicted to drama and mayhem in your life?
Are you living within your financial means?
Do you start projects and never finish them?
Are you always having boyfriend/girlfriend trouble?
Do you waste water?
Are you patient with children?
Are you gossiping?
Do you think at the end of your life you will be held responsible?
Are you holding on to old grudges?
Do you wash your hands after you used the bathroom?
Do you say “please” and “thank you” often?
Are you friendly with your family, even if you find them difficult?
Do you watch brainless TV programs?
Are you taking recreational drugs and/or excessive alcohol?
Do you reach out when you feel lonely?
Are you always late?
Do you cover your mouth when you sneeze/ cough?
Do you read a book once in a while?
Are you text-messaging when you drive?
Do you think the world and the people in it owe you something?
Have you given to charity in the last month?
Are you neighborly?
Are you eating more than your share at the table - given that there are about ten billion people who also want to eat?
Do you work hard for your dreams?
Is your house cluttered?
Do you recycle?
Do you lend a helping hand – even to strangers?
Are you the problem – or are you part of the solution to the problem? Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
In the Midst of Life We Are in Death
June 29, 2010
The unimaginable for all of us is that we will die.
Other people, of course, die. But not us. This is how we deceive ourselves.
Let’s undeceive: It is time that we lift the taboo around death. Death should be with us all the time, in our consciousness - because it is with us, in reality. It can happen any time: An accident, a bad diagnosis. Not to mention the daily little dying in tiniest pieces that we call aging. In the midst of life we are in death – as the old Church hymn sings. Death surely is the reason why we invented religion – because it is so damn hard to think the unthinkable.
Most of all, we want to protect our children from death. So we are building a world free of the dark side. Death is never mentioned. When somebody dies, we keep children away.
Of course, children are not stupid – they know about death, usually by age four: the hamster that lied stiff under the radiator one morning. The news and pictures of war on TV. Even the wilting bunch of flowers in a vase. Nothing will last forever. All beauty will end up on the compost pile.
But not talking about death makes it even harder for children: They have to hide their deepest fears from their parents, not to hurt their feelings (that is how childhood works: children protect their parents. All the time).
When I was five, my father took me to a patient who had freshly died overnight. I remember the day like few others. It was a sunny Sunday morning, but the room with the dead man was kept dark. The widow cried, but she had enough compassion for the little girl to hand me an apple. I stared at the form in the bed. The jaws were tied up with a white napkin as if the man had suffered from toothache. I smelled my apple. Was it bad manners to bite into the apple in the presence of a dead man? I decided it was, and just held my apple. The widow said her husband had been suffering for so long; now his suffering was over. My father took out his stethoscope, examined the body and confirmed he had died.
On the way home, I asked many questions – I was that why? Why? Why? kid.
Did it hurt me? I don’t think so.
Denial hurts children – it deprives them of the means to grow up. Nothing is sadder than an elderly person who panics about the subject. To acknowledge that death awaits each one of us at the end, makes us live our lives more mindful, more compassionate.
Proposal: Everybody should read Sogyal Rinpoche's "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying") once a year, as a way to face what is so hard to face. As a way to grow up. Alternatively, for an easier read, try: Irvin Yalom's "Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death. " Read More
The Role of Parents
May 13, 2010
Parents (and grandparents) have two assignments, as far as I am concerned: One is to love their children, and one is to say “No!” to them, loud and often.
We don’t do our children any favor to give in to any whim and wheedling – and they don’t have to be told with any little effort they exert that they are “so special.” Children’s task is to prepare for life, and parents’ task is to show them the way.
When my son was little, we had a musical party each June, until he went to college - an afternoon full of roses and sun and music and friendship. There was one rule: At least one member of a family had to play or sing – otherwise the family was disinvited. You can’t believe how many requests I got to make an exception for little Johnny or darling Emma! I always said “No!”
My husband said I couldn’t do that, it was impolite. I said it was my party and my rules.
We performed, one after the other, and then we shared potluck and played games. Over time, so many parents approached me and said how glad they were we were sticking with the rules. Because they themselves were unable to say “No!” to their son/daughter. Now those children who had so much “freedom” are grown up – and I wonder how they will fare in life.
How did my son stay with his instrument through all those years? I always agreed he could stop playing - but only at the end of the school year because one sticks with things (at least for a while). At the end of the school year, after all the rehearsals and our musical party, he felt so good about himself that there was no discussion of quitting ... until November. Read More