Author: Susan Minarik

A Hole in the Bucket

You know the old kids’ song about Martha and Henry, don’t you? It romped into my mind today for no reason at all and ran a whole movie for me as the verses unfolded.

The song, in case you don’t know it, is a duet between Martha and Henry. I picture them as a couple of pioneer settlers,making a homestead in a rough-hewn wood cabin in the rocky, Appalachian woods.

Martha asks Henry to fetch some water. Henry says he can’t.

“There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Martha, dear Martha. ” he explains, grabbing the bucket to show it to her. See? he gestures, pointing. “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Martha. A hole.”

Well, they have to have water, right? There’s no way around it. Martha, slightly exasperated sings back to Henry, ”Well fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,” Her hands are on her hips. Her foot is tapping the dusty ground. “Well fix it, dear Henry. Dear Henry, fix it!”

The story unfolds from there. Poor Henry holds his hands out at his side, shrugs his shoulders and says to Martha, “With what shall I fix it, dear Martha?”

She has little patience with him. She tells him to use straw.

He informs her that the straw is too long, and she tells him to cut it.

Then, he actually dares to ask “With what shall I cut it, dear Martha, dear Martha?”

She’s pretty sure his every last lick of common sense is gone. She tells him to use a knife.

“The knife is too dull,” he says.

“Well, sharpen it!” she snaps..

“With what?” he asks, smiling a bit slyly.

“With a stone!”

He gets his sharpening stone and pulls the knife blade across it. It’s not going to work.

He looks up at Martha and tells her the problem is that the rock is too dry.

Poor Martha’s patience is hanging by a very slim thread now. “Well, wet it!” she growls.

“With what shall I wet it, dear Martha, dear Martha?” he says, crossing his arms across his chest, and looking her in the eye.

“With water!” she snaps, calling him a dunce in her mind.

“In what shall I fetch it?” he asks ever so slowly.

“In the bucket!” she spits through clenched teeth.

Then he gets her.

Standing nose to nose with her, he grins, then sings, “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Martha, dear Martha.”

And that’s where the song ends. Unless, of course, you want to sing it all over again. Some people do that.

I imagine there’s a moral to this old song somewhere. Maybe it’s advice to keep a spare bucket on hand. But I think it’s probably just to remind us that we’re all like Martha and Henry sometimes, picking at each other when things go wrong. Such is life. It’s okay.

Besides, after we leave them, Martha and Henry have a good laugh at their situation and work together to figure out workable solutions to their problem. By nightfall, they’re enjoying freshly brewed tea in front of a bonfire.

They don’t tell you that in the song. But it’s good to know.

Have yourself an excellent week, my friend! And do think about picking up a spare bucket.

Warmly,
Susan

The Elements of Joy

Once a week, three friends and I gather from our various corners of the globe for a chat. We’ve been doing this for 11 years now. Until a couple weeks ago, we talked on the phone. But now we have moved into the Zoom sphere and we meet online, where we can see each other’s faces and show each other things in our environments.

Last week, Patricia showed us the beginnings of her new wool sculpture. You build a frame with wire and wrap wool around it in layers. That’s the essence of it. But the description doesn’t begin to hint at the beauty of the finished product. This is Patricia’s third wool sculpture, and this one is a dancer. We can hardly wait to see the final result.

Anyway, Patricia was talking about her experience in working with this latest piece. She’s learning more sophisticated techniques now, so the work is just above her skill level.

“That’s the perfect place to be to slip into the flow state,” I said. It’s that state of mind you’re in when you’re focused on something intently, paying close attention because it’s just a little bit of a reach. You know you can do it, and it’s kind of exciting to try to get it just right. Then you move on to the next step, and the next one. And before you know it, two hours have slipped by, totally unnoticed. That’s the flow state. You’re doing something just to do it, for the challenge of it. You don’t think about the final result. You might let your ideas about how you want it to turn out guide you. But the result comes later. It’s the doing itself that has your attention. The result just happens as a result.

You don’t feel a lot of emotion when you’re in a flow state. But when you come out of it, you feel a boost, a realization that you’ve been in special place, that you’re invigorated and satisfied at the same time.

You can create a state of flow for yourself any time you want. Whatever you’re doing, even if it’s a routine task, see if you can do better than you’ve ever done before. Do it faster, or more efficiently, or give more attention to the tiny details of it. Pay attention to what you’re doing. Notice things about it that you never noticed before.

Flow is a big part of a key element of well-being, or “flourishing” as the positive psych guys call it. The label it “engagement.” It implies a high interest in the matter at hand, a total involvement with it.

The other elements of flourishing are positive emotions, relationships, meaning, and achievement. They weave together in unique and wonderful ways. One component may far outweigh the others in some people’s lives. Others find they have a fairly balanced mix of all five in their lives. The emphasis varies from person to person. But all of us draw on at least a couple of the components to experience the fullness of life, and we experience all five of them at one time or another.

All of us taste at least some of the positive emotions: Joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, love. They add to life’s zest and heighten our appreciation of its beauty.

Most of us are blessed to have worthwhile relationships in our lives, or to have had them at one time or another.   And all it takes is one to know how valuable they are.

Most of us find something that gives us a sense of meaning or purpose, even though the search can be a daunting one if you’re trying to reach for something profound. But meaning doesn’t have to be a deep, cosmic revelation. One study I read said people found meaning in little, close-to-home kinds of things, like enjoying lunch with a friend. For me, meaning is in everything that says Yes to life.

Finally, there’s accomplishment. It’s means the kind of fulfillment or satisfaction or worthy pride you feel when you did something you set out for yourself to do. Maybe it’s sticking in there until you find a job, or earn your degree, or even get out of bed in the morning because you challenged yourself to do it. Recognizing our accomplishments empowers us. It gives us a sense of “I can.”

There’s an acronym to remember the five elements of flourishing, in case you should ever want to consider them, just for the fun of it. You can do a little inventory as you go through your day and notice which of them are in play. The acronym is PERMA, made from the first letters of each element:

P – Positive Emotions

E – Engagement

R – Relationships

M – Meaning

A – Accomplishments

Which one will be adding to your life today? Hmmm?

Me? I’m going to grab my camera and get engaged in a photo-hunt. It’s one of my favorite things.

I’ll be wishing you a week where engagement grabs you, too, and catches you right up in its flow.

Warmly, Susan

Hot Spots in Our Reality Bubbles

It doesn’t take much to spot them these days. We all have them now, looking like an overhead view of a volcano’s crater, filled with fiery lava, ready to blow. Spend fifteen minutes talking with anybody. Take a peek at social media. Turn on the news and watch your own start glowing.

 I’m talking about our hot spots, those seething pools of negativity–fear, anger, outrage, anguish, and all-around general ill-will.   And to tell you the truth, I don’t know anybody who has gone unscathed. BUT I do happen to have a handy-dandy tube of salve you can borrow that instantly soothes the sting and let’s you get back to seeing the world’s beauty.

 It has a three main ingredients. The first one is Presence, an almost magical healer that pulls you into your immediate here and now, where none of your imagined horrific scenarios are actually manifesting themselves. (And even if they were, a good squirt of Presence delivers the clarity you need to deal with them.)

 Presence offers a whole list of benefits. But the one that activates the instant you apply it is its story-destroying capability. It freezes your stories right in their tracks–all your thoughts and judgments, your supposes and imaginings and dreams. Suddenly, all you have is the data your senses are bringing you–the light, color, and shape of everything that surrounds you, the textures and fragrances and sounds. Here: Try a squirt. Stop reading for a second, take a deep breath, look up, and step into your immediate world.

 See? It’s downright refreshing, isn’t it?

 The next ingredient that activates when you apply this fascinating salve is Smile-Maker. It subtly, but unavoidably, requires your lips to curl into an evolving little smile. Its effects vary from person to person For some it produce a smile that quickly expands into a grin and may even erupt into laughter. For others, only a tiny little smile may occur. But even the smallest one is capable of growing if the wearer focuses on it for a bit It’s an automatic reaction, hard-wired into your physiology.

 You can experiment with this right now. Imagine that you just placed a potent little drop of Smile-Maker on your tongue and let your lips respond. Pay attention to whatever smile happens. Feel for yourself its built-in tendency to grow.

 The third main ingredient of this soothing slave is Compassion. You may know it by the name Loving-Kindness. It targets the heart, dissolving any hardness it finds there, clearing the way for you to forgive, accept, and embrace all the beings and events that come to your attention. It imparts a sense of relatedness toward other people, a recognition that we’re all human—complex, fallible beings, just walking each other home. A true pain-killer, Compassion melts away every shred of fear or anger it touches, replacing them with a willingness to wish well-being for all others everywhere.

 Blended together in a light base of hope and liberally applied, this wondrous salve cools, relieves, and refreshes. Once more, its user is free to perceive the world’s goodness and beauty unmarred.

 Tuck a few tubes in your pocket. Hand them out whenever you see a hot spot erupting on somebody’s reality bubble. And be sure to smooth some on your own. It’s the loving thing to do.

 

Looking Differently

This week I noticed that chicory was blossoming on the roadside now. I’ve never been particularly fond of it, despite the lovely blue of its flowers. As it it were up to me to judge, I considered the flowers too sparsely spaced on its lanky stems.

Still, it was a marker of the season’s march. And now, here it was, dotting the roadside along with the Queen Anne’s lace and the wild daylilies. I should, I decided, take its picture.

 The day I chose to do it was filled with rain until well into the afternoon, and the blossoms had curled inward in a gesture of self-protection. Something about that touched me. I felt a little wave of tenderness wash over me as I hunted for one that had dared to open.

 When I found one and focused my camera’s lens on it, I discovered a design far more intriguing than I ever would have imagined. And I walked away with an appreciative smile, grateful for the revelation that looking closely brought me.

 Sometimes looking at something differently is all it takes to see in it a treasure that you never suspected was there. The key is to be open to appreciation, to holding an openness to being surprised by wonder, or compassion, or admiration, or delight.

 Appreciation for beauty or excellence is one of the character strengths I’ve been mentioning in my last few letters. This quality of appreciation is also described as a capacity for awe, that ethereal feeling that comes when you see how truly something approaches perfection, how it’s just right, exactly as it is.

 When we open yourself to being appreciative, everything–and everyone– holds potential for bringing us joy. At the very least, we begin to see how everything is working toward fulfilling its purpose, even when it currently seems to be falling far short. Even when it isn’t as we, personally, would prefer it to be.

Sometimes, as I said, it’s just a matter of looking at things differently. Instead of looking at what’s wrong or upsetting, we can open ourselves to finding what’s good, what’s right, what effort is being made. We can set aside our judgment and our preferences and look to see more of what is there. We can look closer, or from a different angle. We can consider things from a higher perspective, or from one that takes into account the context, or at where things are in terms of their development in time.

A five-year-old’s performance at a dance recital won’t hold the same kind of beauty as that of an accomplished ballerina. But appreciation for it can transform it into one of the dearest things you’ve ever seen.

The old man’s hands may be wrinkled and gnarled. But you can see in them a lifetime of work.

The rioter setting a storefront ablaze may fill us with anger, but we can stand farther off and appreciate his passion and pain and be moved to do what we can to make our nation a more just and virtuous one.

We can learn to appreciate life’s difficult and distressing times for the insights they bring about what we can do, minute by minute, to strive for more harmony, compassion, and excellence in our own lives.

Appreciation teaches us to look within as well as without, to discover what’s good and beautiful about ourselves, and to decide to share those things more fully with the world. So appreciate your kindness, your sense of humor, your discipline, your creativity, your smile. Appreciate your talents and skills, your determination, your honesty, your generosity, your thrift, your faith.

Really. Take the time to do that. Hold open a willingness to see what’s good in you. And treat yourself to appreciating the goodness and beauty and excellence that surrounds you. It’s always there. Sometimes, as the chicory taught me, it’s just a matter of looking at things differently.

A Higher View

Looking down on the creek from the bridge, you can see so much more than when you stand on its banks, peering through the tangle of weeds and trees.

You can watch the water flow from far upstream, skirt the little island, dance around the rocks or bubble over them. You can see its shallows and its depths and understand how both are a part of it all, and how the creek and the rocks and the trees are all a part of some great conversation that includes it all.

You can watch the water flow downstream, wiser with every meter, richer with stories than it ever was before.

It’s sort of like us.

What often looks so narrow and tangled becomes so beautiful and whole when you take a higher view.

The American Way

Every July 4th, when I was a teen, I’d sprawl on our living room floor and read the Declaration of Independence. It was something important to us in those days. It was a kind of sacred national document. 

Back then, we studied our founding documents. We talked about what they meant. They made us proud; they gave us a sense of purpose. We believed that the liberty and justice they described was intended for all, that we, as a diverse people, coming together from all the corners of the earth, were at work creating a nation that exemplified the best of humankind. We sang “America the Beautiful” as if it was our national hymn. 

It was a different world back then. TV was new to homes and it didn’t stay on 24 hours a day. It signed off at night with an inspirational verse, or a clip of an fighter plane soaring through the sky while the Air Force Hymn played, or a ship plowing through the sea as the Navy choir sang “Anchors Aweigh. Finally, an inspirational picture of the American flag blowing in the wind filled the screen while the national anthem played. And with that in our minds, we went to bed.

 At school, we were taught that our flag meant something, too. It stood for freedom. Every classroom had one standing at the front of the room. Before our classes began, we would stand together facing it, our hands over our hearts, as we repeated the pledge of allegiance. We were proud to do that, and honored to be Americans. We didn’t take the privilege lightly. Men and women had given their lives, after all, so that we could be free.

We learned what freedom meant. We had neighbors who spoke to each other in languages we couldn’t understand, but who talked to us and to our parents in English. They would tell us what it was like not to be free, to have to hide your ideas, guard your speech, keep your cultural heritage, your literature and music, your customs, your religious beliefs and celebrations, a secret or face terrible punishments, maybe even death. That’s why they came here. That’s why they respected the beliefs and ideas of others, and why we children were taught to respect differences, too.

We didn’t go around screaming for diversity and tolerance. We were diverse. We looked at the cultures and customs of other nationalities and races with interest and fascination, as wonderful expressions of the human race, as something to be appreciated, even as we appreciated our own.

People could get into heated arguments over their ideas. But they seldom came to blows. And if they did, once they had cooled down, they apologized to each other and went on being neighbors or co-workers or friends, The motto everyone abided by was “I might disagree with what you are saying, but I will fight for your right to say it.” It was the motto that everyone knew. We were taught that freedom of speech was an unalienable right. We understood that listening to the ideas of others expanded and deepened our own thinking and could open our minds to fresh ways of seeing things.

Back then, we had heroes who stood for our ideals, too. Superman would fly across the screen of our black and white TV sets while his theme song played and a strong, deep voice proclaimed that he fought for “truth, justice, and the American way.”

 The American way meant that everybody was free to become the best person he or she could be. A man or woman could set a goal and work toward its achievement in any way that didn’t step on another person’s freedom. We valued initiative, inventiveness, ambition, and hard work.

In my heart, I believe the majority of us still feel that way. But over the past couple of decades,insidious forces have been at work to undermine our reverence for our nation and to assail the ideals for which it stands. These forces have infiltrated our media, our entertainment, our educational, legal, and governmental systems. Knowing that division weakens us, they have sought to divide us by religion, race, sex, political affiliation and class. They have set us at odds with each other and created an atmosphere of hostility and fear.

And the time has come for us to stand. The time has come for us to rededicate ourselves to this precious Republic and to the values for which it stands—for freedom, for brotherhood, for prosperity and security for all. It’s time for us to determine to be a force for good in the world, to shine the light of freedom across the globe.

From a joy-warrior’s point of view, that means we need to make a renewed dedication to focusing on the things that bring harmony and thriving to our personal spheres. We need to look for the goodness and beauty and truth around us, and to speak it, and live it as fully as we can, in whatever ways we can. We need to remember that we are all in this world together. We’re all a part of the human family. And each us can choose to strive to be our very best. For me, that, truly, is the American way.

What a Piece of Work

On the bulletin board above my desk I keep a list of strengths. It’s been there for years, and to tell you the truth, I haven’t read through it in ages.

Last week I promised you I would share the list with you today. So I unpinned it, held it in my hands and started to read through it. It’s old, familiar material for me, and at first, I just scanned it. But I was less than a third of the way through the list when the profundity of it stuck me.

A passage from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” floated into my mind: “What a piece of work is a man . . . the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.”

That may be an overstatement. But when you consider all the achievements of the human race—a worthwhile thing to think about now and then—you have to admit that we are indeed remarkable creatures.

This isn’t a casually created list. To identify these characteristics, the team who created it looked at the histories and literature of cultures around the world from ancient times to the present. What traits did we, as human beings, value most highly? What characteristics contributed the most to our personal sense of well-being and to the well-being of our cultures?

The twenty-four traits on this list are the result of their research.

I slowed down and read them carefully, letting myself feel the quality of each item. I suggest that you read them that way, too. Savor them. Taste the flavor of each of them. These are the qualities that mark the best in us as human beings.

As individuals, we possess them in varying degrees. We’re all strong in some of them and not particularly gifted in others. When you read through the list, you’ll notice which ones resonate the most with you. It’s the ones that strike a chord in you that are probably your own best strengths, the parts of you that you express when you feel good about who you are and how you’re doing things.

And that’s a good thing. We’re more successful overall when we’re using our best strengths. They serve as a kind of compass to tell us when we’re on the right track, when we’re being true to who we, as unique individuals, are.

So here is the list, in alphabetical order. Take time to read it, to feel it, to let it bring you insights about yourself, and about all of us. Pick out your favorites and play with seeing them at work in your life as you go through the week. Look for these qualities in others, too. It will lead you to greater appreciation for them and enjoy their unique individuality.

Appreciation Beauty and Excellence, Awe

Bravery, Courage

Creativity, Ingenuity

Critical Thinking, Open-Mindedness, Good Judgment

Curiosity, Interest

Fairness

Forgiveness, Mercy

Gratitude, Thankfulness

Honesty, Authenticity

Hope, Optimism

Kindness, Generosity

Leadership

Love, Attachment

Love of Learning

Modesty, Humility

Perseverance, Persistence, Diligence, Industriousness

Perspective, Wisdom

Playfulness, Humor

Prudence, Discretion, Caution

Religiousness, Spirituality

Self-Control, Self-Regulation

Social Intelligence, Social Skills, Understand Motives of Others

Teamwork

Zest, Enthusiasm

Continue reading What a Piece of Work

A Tale About a Great Character

A new friend was telling me how important he believed it is to be positive. I heartily agreed of course and told him I had spent a few years writing about positive psychology on a blog I had for a while. I explained that positive psychology was the study of what makes us whole, happy, thriving human beings.

“And what are the things that do that for us?” he asked. I told him that it seemed to boil down to discovering your best traits and building on them. Positive psychology, I told him, calls these traits your character strengths.

I hadn’t thought about the list of character strengths for a while, but they floated into my awareness again today when I was thinking about my dad. Today is “Father’s Day” here in the States, and as I was recalling the things I loved about my dad, I realized how many strengths he embodied.

The first one that came to mind was his wonderful sense of humor. He loved to laugh and to tell stories that brought laughter to other people, too. That was definitely one of his top strengths. I think it’s what saved him. His life wasn’t an easy one. He had plenty of reasons to fall into despair, to think of himself as a victim of unfair circumstances, a loser in the lottery of life.

But he would have none of that. He looked, instead, for life’s goodness, for the things that were juicy with beauty and friendship and love.

He was industrious, too, a hard worker. He would take on any task that would make things work better or contribute something constructive to the world around him. And he would stick to it until he was satisfied with the result.

Dad had a zest for life. He was open to whatever came along, ready to meet new experiences with enthusiasm.

He loved learning, too. He was always reading something and he would dig for weeks to find answers to questions that popped into his mind. Only one time did he have a question that went unanswered. “You know that guy you see flying around on a magic carpet?” he would ask people. Everybody knew the image. “What was his name?” Dad would ask. Nobody knew. The ladies at the library couldn’t even find the answer. Dad finally gave up on that one. He said he’d just call him Sam.

He was generous, and kind, and hopeful and optimistic.

He had a great big heart.

All of those traits of his are strengths. Character strengths, to be precise. They’re the things that let us be good people. The positive psychologists had identified two dozen of them last time I checked. I’ll share the list with you next week. It’s fun to think about which ones are most important to you. Usually the ones you value the most are the ones that are strongest in your own personality. Once you identify them, you can use them as tools for tackling whatever challenges come your way. And the best part is, when you learn to build on your best ones, the rest of them increase in strength, too.

I can see how that worked in my dad’s life. His willingness to laugh gave him a perspective that developed into a genuine wisdom the permeated every aspect of his life. I feel so lucky to have had him as my dad.

Dad’s matter. If you are a father, I salute you today. If you are the child of a loving father, or have had a strong father-figure in your life, I share with you the incredible feeling of knowing you have truly been blessed.

Sleepless Nights

It is not quite 5 am, and I wake to a fragment of dream that shoots an arrow of pain through my heart.

I turn on my laptop to see if there is any news. Of course there is news. Events are flowing past now at warp speed. But I am looking for something particular. I’m not sure what it is; but if I see it, I will recognize it.

My email is full of offers. They seem quaint somehow, shreds from a vanishing world that is sinking into a sea of confusion, fear, anger, and pain. The suffering speaks in countless tongues through the posts I read on Twitter:

“I’ve cried uncontrollably all week. Life doesn’t seem worth living. If you believe in prayer, I could use a few. My nickname is JoJo. Thank you ahead of time. I’ve lost all my mental strength.”

“My brothers and sisters, I’ve been drinking ALOT lately and my kids are worried. I think I’m addicted so I’m putting it out there. Maybe if I answer to my family it will be incentive to quit. I love my kids so much but my nightmares really make me struggle.”

I sigh, and look up from my computer screen. The sky outside my window is glowing red as the sun pushes toward the top of the eastern hills. Just above the horizon, a layer of clear gold shines beneath the vivid clouds. “Joy,” a voice whispers in my mind as I gaze at the scene and I hear a small laugh escape from my mouth.

“You picked one heck of a time to be a joy-warrior,” I say to myself. “You have your work cut out for you, for sure.” But I am looking out the window, and the clouds are thinning as they rise, and light begins to wash across the hills. The metaphor is clear. I decide to make a cup of coffee. Whatever the day may bring I will welcome.

Everything has meaning. Everything comes to teach, to guide.

Even the darkness has its gifts, even the pain. The No points the way to the Yes. The key is to remember not to fight against, but to fight for.

Remember to ask yourself the right questions:
What soothes? What comforts? What brings laughter? What encourages and inspires?
Where does strength lie? Where is the goodness, the beauty, the truth? What frees?
What are the hidden opportunities? What is the better choice? What is the next best step?

Then listen, and wait for the answers to rise.
They will. We have more wisdom within us than we know.

When the world is in turmoil, listening can be hard. We get entangled in the strands of pain flying all around us. The clouds of uncertainty are thick and deep. The No seems to be screaming from every direction. It threatens our hope and attacks our faith. It keeps us from our sleep.

But always, no matter how dark the night, morning dawns. And beyond the clouds, the sky is infinite and clear. Be open to it, however heavy your heart may be, for it contains gifts for you. Always. Even when you do not immediately understand them. Listen to the Yes of it, follow its song. It will show you your direction and light your way.

Nights, even the sleepless ones, only last so long.