Attentiveness – Page 21

Memento Senectus

Memento mori, latin for “remember your death,” is a powerful spiritual practice. When we recall that we are finite, we are freed to live with singular purpose and focus on the most important things.

Relatedly, I wonder what happens when we consider memento senectus, “remember your old age?”

God willing, we will reach old age and, during that time, our bodies and minds will probably work less well and the context of our days will have changed considerably.

When we consider this reality, what effect does it have on how we want to live today?

What Confers Status?

Here is a question that gets right to the heart of a community’s culture: Within this community, what confers status?

Put another way: You see those people at the top of the heap? Why do we have a collective understanding that those people are at the top?

I’ve been part of communities that have conferred status based on the following:

-Seniority

-Generosity and consistency

-Conspicuous performance of ideological purity

-Looking like other people regarded as high status

-Level of contribution

-Articulate confidence

-Athleticism

-Professional excellence

Getting clear on what confers status in a community helps us understand how it runs. That is a huge step toward understanding the culture and, therefore, gaining perspective on how you can help it to grow.

Sonder

Have you heard of the word sonder, meaning the experience of realizing that all other people have an interior life as rich and complex as one’s own?

Fascinatingly, it was coined in the past ten years, in an effort to name emotional experiences that currently lack a proper word in English.

Both the experience of sonder, as well as the effort to name complex emotions that lack easy articulation, functions to build our capacity for humility and insight, resulting in more compassionate communities.

Error Messages, Considered Curiously

When programming a web application, error messages constantly appear in the browser where the project is being built, displaying text describing that something is going wrong. (A file is missing. A typo broke part of the program. A module is missing. The server is misconfigured.)

Some error messages are clear. Some are difficult to decipher.

These messages are a constant part of the building experience, and so the programmer must make a constant choice. She can see the error as a chance to learn, to improve the project, to hone her skill. Or, she can let herself hate the error message and bear down in frustration each time a message appears.

One approach will lead to growth and the other will lead to painful frustration.

We encounter error messages, in life, all the time. Those things don’t go quite right based on our narratives about the world, in professional, personal, political, or social spheres.

Let us try to welcome these messages with a compassionate curiosity and generous engagement, and, when we fail, resolve to become curious about what keeps us from being able to do so.

One-Browser-Tab Time

When working on my computer, I am often guilty of having a comical number of browser tabs open at one time. Each tab represents a reminder to do something or an open loop I need to close. And the sheer number of tabs that are open keeps me from attending to any one task well.

The most important things (our most cherished relationships, time spent in prayer, dedicated generosity) deserve our single-minded attentiveness, as if it were the only browser tab open in our minds. Protecting this focused time is both tough and worth it.

Unexpected Gentleness

Here is one of my favorite stories from the writings of the Desert Fathers.

A novice is worried because the monk that he sits next to during the late prayer keeps falling asleep. He asks an older monk what he should do.

The master’s response? See that the sleeping monk is comfortable. Do not disturb him.

Often, we conceive of a “conversion experience” as necessarily startling or shocking. Many times, though, an experience of unexpected gentleness can be uniquely powerful and an enduring reason to believe.

Anticipate Turbulence

Last week, our older son and I flew on an airplane. As we were about to take off, the pilot explained where on the trip we might experience turbulence and how to prepare ourselves.

This is an outstanding exercise for our personal and professional lives. Anticipating turbulence with loved ones, in counselling, and in spiritual direction can enable our artful response.

And yes, there is turbulence for which we cannot prepare. Knowing this, we can spend the time in silence, cultivating solitude and trust, so that we have the interior resources we need when a challenge arises.

Anticipating turbulence helps us respond instead of react when strain enters our lives.

Always a First Year Teacher

The experience of being a first-year teacher is uniquely disorienting.

I find myself suddenly responsible for children at an age of which I have limited experience. I must attend compassionately to who they are and what they need even as they are unable to communicate this to me directly. I must, balancing empathy and assertiveness, consistently create the world of the class. And I must maintain this sense of consistency even as I integrate constant improvements to serve the students better. And I must do this every day.

For parents, too, a similar dynamic is always at play. Since my oldest child is always getting older, I am always a parent of a child of an age of which I have little direct experience. (Today is the first day I have parented a child of 4.65 years, for example.)

It is right to acknowledge the challenge of this dynamic. When we do, we are able, also, to see the possibility. We get to meet our child anew every day.

You’re Right. I Suck.

(This is the first of the Four Horsemen of Fixed Mindset, four mental stances that clip our potential, limit our intelligence, and stifle budding growth.)

When faced with a setback, a challenge, or a bit of critical feedback, we occasionally collapse into ourselves declaring: “You’re right. I suck.” We fixate on the negative so thoroughly, we are scarcely able to see anything else. We over-identify with the experience of failure.

This represents a subtle form of hiding. If I am fundamentally incapable of addressing the challenge with flexibility and insight, I am off the hook!

This mental stance distorts reality and side steps the wisdom on offer. Namely, it:

1) Over-identifies with the negative moment, hardening the (untrue) narrative that we are bad and incapable.

2) Blinds us from the positive buds of growth that already exist in the situation.

Let’s watch out for “you’re right, I suck.” Seeing and naming it drains it of its power.

You’re Wrong. I Rule.

(This is the second of the Four Horsemen of Fixed Mindset, four mental stances that clip our potential, limit our intelligence, and stifle budding growth.)

In this mental stance, when faced with constructive feedback or a setback, we become defiant. (I don’t deserve this! You’re wrong, world! I rule!)

This Horseman takes the legs out from under our curiosity. We avoid the questions that could lead to our growth. For example: What could I learn from this generous gift of feedback? What is the whole, complex picture of why I experienced that specific failure? How might I improve?

When we say, “I’m right. I rule. Full stop,” we wimp out. We dodge the uncomfortable but healthy questions that the situation at hand poses to us.