A Counselor's Holiday Wish: 2001
As I pause and reflect, I marvel at just how little control I have actually
had over the events that have so dramatically shaped this rapidly closing
year, this "first year of the new millennium." Be it my only daughter's
wedding in Jamaica or terrorist attacks 100 miles north and south of where
I live, I have at best, been a participant-observer to these events in my
life. Irrespective of this fact, I nonetheless continually have had choices
regarding my reactions to these events...we have all had choices regarding
our "own events" that will soon be catalogued in our memories as "2001."
To continue with my metaphor of the mosaic, I have been placed in a studio,
given the tiles with which to work on my creation, but left to my own devices
as regards the story they will be assembled to convey. Although I suspect
none reading this missive have any doubts about the significance of my reference
to September 11 as representative of the "dark shades" of tile with which
I work, it is just as likely that few reading this knew of the events that
are representative of the "brighter shades" of tile available for my consideration;
one event touched all our lives, the other may be of significance to a relative
few.
As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens while you are busy making plans";
how true. But although "life happens" while we are making plans, it is nonetheless
open to interpretation. Abraham Lincoln once stated that, "Most men are
as happy as they make up their minds to be" and I have had a year rife with
opportunities to prove him prophetic. So how are we supposed to play the
cards life deals us? How do we realize that life is not so much 'good' or
'bad,' it simply "is"? Is it as simple as realizing that the affective interpretations
of the day-to-day events that occur in one's life are open to our own interpretation?
While it is true that there are many things that happen during one's lifetime
on this planet that may escape our understanding--and in my mad dash to
make sense of the apparent chaos or insanity that surrounds me from time
to time, I sometimes find myself standing, arms akimbo, wondering why I
bother as a counselor educator to even try and bring some order to just
a small corner of this life--but then I see my daughter standing on the
beach with her new husband or read about the countless acts of kindness
and the outpouring of aid everyday folk like myself provided post 9-11 and
I am reminded of what I so often tell my own clients when they rail about
the injustice of this life and "lack of fairness in the world. "Is," I ask,
"2 minutes a long time or a short time?" Almost always they say, "A short
time," to which I respond, "Okay, hold your breath for 2 minutes." The client
smiles and we both recognize that the real answer is, "it depends."
There is an old saying that floats across my memory as I prepare this holiday
message. It goes something like: "Yesterday is but a memory; tomorrow, but
a dream, today is a gift, that's why we call it the present." I do not suppose
to be able to make sense of the events that all of us have experienced this
past year, the public events like 9-11 or the private ones like deaths or
other personal tragedies. I do believe, however, that the Creator has given
each of us the opportunity to approach our days and their events much like
a child whose creativity may allow it to see things more broadly than do
we with our jaundiced eye of scientific empiricism and the cynicism born
of "life's experiences." I once found my then 8-year old son playing in
a large cardboard box in which a refrigerator had been delivered. I asked
what he was doing and he said without missing a beat, "I just returned from
Jupiter." I thought nothing of it until I looked inside the box. There on
the inside, drawn from the perspective of an 8-year old, were the dials
and gages of an interplanetary vehicle. It was in that split second--not
unlike that of my clients when I suggest they hold their breath for 2 minutes
when perceiving it to be "a short time--that it dawned on me that my son
had actually traveled to Jupiter!
There is nothing good that can come from the devastation of 9-11, this I
know. But there is, I believe, something good that may come from the way
individual "everyday people" like you and me deal with and react to such
events. "Life happens" and there is nothing I can do about that. Likewise,
I do not control these happenings, although I may be able to reduce some
of life's risks by the choices I make. I do believe, however, that how I
approach what happens in this life may just spell the difference between
becoming a cynic with a hardened soul like Ebenezer Scrooge and open the
door instead to realizing that, as Emerson wrote in his famous definition
of success, "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have
lived. That is to have succeeded."
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa or any other holiday
at this time of the year, I suggest that life is like a Christmas morning
where there is always one more "present" left to be opened under the tree
of life. Sometimes that gift is the infamous "lump of coal," but sometime
it is the equally fabled "new bike"; most are just plain average days. But
like the little kid who seems to be able to enjoy playing with the packaging
in which the coal was delivered, so are we able to create our own mosaic,
story if you will, from the individual events of life that cannot help but
happen each day.
With this, I wish you and yours the happiest and healthiest of holiday seasons
and, I truly pray, peace on Earth and good will to all in the coming year.
Best regards,
Robert