MentorBoom

I haven’t found much in life that can’t fit along a continuum.  A Likert Scale is such a continuum.  You’ve seen it before, it’s just a line with 7 increments (sometimes 5), starting at a 0 point up to 7.  If I were to ask you how you would like to go skydiving with me, the increment of 0-1 indicates “Not in my wildest dreams!”  4-5 might indicate you’re intrigued by the idea, but that is a real leap of faith to consider actually doing it.   If you’re up to 6-7, you just want to know when we’re going and if you can invite a friend!

So it is with most everything in our lives.  We can’t help but look at anything and not have some preference about it.  For each thing we find worthy of our attention, whether through necessity or choice, we form opinions.  We consider how we like what we focus on, or not.  Do I want more of that or less of it in my life?   I like this aspect of this thing before me, but
I would change that about it in a very specific way.

Arno told me that “In the beginning, all things are good.”  In the heat of early lovers’ passion, even significant obstructions are glossed over, given only passing interest.  As the heat subsides over time, there’s not enough adrenaline still flowing to get over the obstructions.  The hurdles are much higher without the blood rush and intoxication of new love.

As the other’s previously endearing foibles become crazy-making habits, things don’t feel so good anymore.  “Be careful what you ask for . . .”, the old adage tells us.  Only through experience and depth of focus can we clearly see what it is we don’t want and get an idea of what we really do want.  When I know what I don’t want it becomes easier to see what I do want.  Contrasting experience is a powerful teacher.

As we’re able to develop reliable means of bringing ourselves back into alignment, the need for great contrast diminishes.  I quickly become more  able to see the continuum and know which end of it I want to favor.  Do I want more of that in my life, or less?  If I want less of anything, I have to turn away from the not wanting and focus all my eager attention on what I do want.

How do I figure out what alignment feels like so I can try to move in that direction?  You already do!  You feel alignment whenever you’re really into the enjoyment of anything.  If it’s bringing you joy and satisfaction, you’re in the vicinity of alignment.  Our feelings are our guide.  If I feel good in the doing, having or being of anything, I am on the right track.

What are the touchstones in your life where merely thinking of them for a moment brings ease? So often we take these good feeling things for granted, but they are the energy source we need.  For me, the thought of playing music with my friends lights me up.  I rarely take those times for granted and the memory and anticipation of them is always easily available.

How can you find your way to these things even in brief thought?  Learn to recognize the moment when you’re feeling that glow.  Do it right now for just a moment.  What comes to mind?  For me it was a short lake trip with two old friends over the weekend and the reconnection we made.  I think of the grilled dinner on the deck at sunset and the swim in the great water.  I can feel the glow of that experience.

What will anchor these touchstones for quick access?  The feel of real friendship, the sunset over the water and the silky quality of the lake when I jumped in all ignite feelings in my body that let me know I am being nurtured by these thoughts.  I want to go back to those feelings as often as possible.  If I have a choice to feel good or feel bad, I prefer the former.

My mother said at some point late in her life, “The weeks go by faster the older I get.”  An interesting, recent psychological study confirms her feeling and has a bit of wisdom for each of us as we age.*

We remember things in such vivid detail from our youth because every experience was new and unique; they imprinted themselves more strongly on the brain.  Over time we develop habitual patterns of doing things.  We have fewer new experiences to refresh those neurons.  What we do routinely, we take for granted.  “When we go to the same places and do the same things, we don’t make distinct memories and time seems to fly by.”

The key to a happy life at any age might lie in what my father said, “You’ve got to have something to look forward to.”  To the degree we lose our optimism and hope for a better future, we quit looking forward to things.  With nothing to look forward to, life becomes a blur of sameness.

To the degree I look forward with hopefulness and optimism, I draw life to me like the next breath.  There is nothing good in hopelessness and pessimism.  In these days of negative bombardment, choosing between these two mindsets is the simple but difficult choice I have to make.

I want to remember the good from the past.  I want to be present in the here and now.  I want to look for and find something new each day.  Do I stray from this intention?  Of course.  We’re all like ships at sea, rarely on a perfect course, but bound to move toward our destination.

And what is the destination?  The destination for me is primarily a pattern of thought, a way of looking at the world.  If I choose to be focused on what’s not going well, my life will slip by unnoticed with a constant buzzing of anxiety.  As I coax myself to appreciation of the good things in my life now, I use my time wisely.  I allow myself to stay in the flow of life: breath in, breath out.

*http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership

Dad said one day at the office, “There’s a reason people retire at 65, they become too ornery to work with after that.”  A few years later, when he reached mandatory retirement age from one particularly lucrative and interesting board on which he sat, he didn’t like it so much.  He felt that he’d just reached the time when his wisdom and experience were of particular value.  The “young turks” who ran the company wanted him gone because he had too much sensible advice and counsel and it began interfering with their bonuses!  No one from the company ever called him for advice after that; he became a sentimental nonentity.

I asked him once what was so compelling about being a board member of this company.  It was during the ’70’s when people took to the streets to express their anger and frustration.  He said, “I think I can make more of a positive difference as a board member than I can protesting in the streets.”  And he did, for many years.  Dad gained a sense of identity from his participation with high level people and decisions.  When it came time to put that aside, I think he was devastated.  He didn’t seem to know where to turn.  He had lost his base.

Arno often said, “You have to have a base to work from.”  Many of us, as we reach retirement or are forced to give up things that have been meaningful and sources of identity in our lives, are likewise adrift.  Life will eventually take everything from us.  We own nothing.  We are borrowers here for a while; all we’ve borrowed must be returned.  But, until that time comes,  where can we find meaning in the latter stages of our lives?

Many of us have invested so much in our careers and outside interests that when the time comes to pull in that energy and live in a different way, we have nothing to fall back on.  As I’ve told my clients over the years as they pondered succession in their family business, “You’ve got to have something to retire to.”  Otherwise we come apart and are set adrift.  How many times do people retire and within 2 years or so are dead?  What are you moving to as you age?  What is worthy of our energy and interest that can help us stay vital and alive as we move into the last stage of our life?

During August, many parents and grandparents participate in the annual ritual of seeing children off to college.  We just did this for my first grandchild, Hannah.  As fate would have it she’s in Raleigh where a generation ago we took her mother, Kim, for her first school experience away from home.

It’s a time of mixed emotions for everyone.  For the kids it’s a mixture of the elation of freedom, along with the anxiety of freedom.  For the parents it’s a mixture of concern and sadness, albeit occasionally mixed with some relief.  We grandparents get to take it all in and remember when we did all this and the jumble of emotions we felt.

We may even look forward to seeing our loved ones again at the next holiday.  Arno talked about “the return”, or from the Hebrew, “tsuvah“.  In practice it has a sense of repentance, but it translates as “return”.  When Arno talked about it there was a sense of reunion with another.  We go apart from each other and we look forward to the return, the reunion.

When we see our loved ones again they will have grown and become more worldly wise.  They will have had encounters, only some of which they were prepared for.  Tsuvah also means that we meet each other again in a higher, purer state.  We learn from our experiences while apart and strive to bring something of value back to our subsequent meetings.

In all aspects of our lives, including our relationships, “the return” is crucial.  If we learn from our time apart, when we meet again we have something to offer.  Otherwise, if we have nothing higher and purer to contribute, we begin to deplete the other person and the relationship deteriorates over time.

It is always my desire, but not always my practice, to bring something fresh and new to my relationships.  Sameness, staleness and predictability sap the life from them.  Unless we meet our significant others at a higher, purer level, unless we look forward to the return, we will tire of each other and the relationship will die a painful, lingering death.

Arno was 35 years older than me when we started our conversations.  I had just gone to work with Dad in our textile business and the relationship was already pretty rocky.  Dad was known as an impatient man.  At his funeral one of his friends said to me, “Bob was the kind of person who’d turn right on red even if he wasn’t going that way, just to keep moving.”

Over the course of our first 3 years together my brown hair started turning gray and thinning at a noticeable rate.  Arno knew well my frustration and my desire to leave this situation, but he gave me some wise counsel.  He said, “Let go of what you don’t need and carry your burdens lightly.”  He saw that the intensity of my frustration with my father was taking its toll.

I realize now that when he told me this he was about the same age I am now and that life had shown him all to clearly that holding on to things he couldn’t change or adapt to led to great unhappiness.  He left behind almost everything he had in Germany, including family members who were convinced that Hitler would not be as bad for the Jews as some thought.  He knew about letting go of things and travelling lightly.

So today I ask myself, what am I holding on to that can be let go?  Where am I allowing myself to be stuck by looking at the closed door, rather than looking for the door that is opening?  The world many of us have known has ended.  It is a new day, for better or for worse.  It’s time to put down those attitudes, habits, relationships and possessions that no longer serve us and learn to carry our burdens more lightly.

One commentator to this blog suggested that for women, mentors have tended to be mothers or grandmothers.  Men have traditionally had other men, often not related, as mentors, but for women this is just often not the case.  So, I took an informal poll.  My small, but extremely bright, control group immediately said, in both cases, “I’ve had women mentors!”

So, based on such extensive research, let’s say that men and women are no different.  As I said in my initial post, we are all students and teachers from time to time.  Based on our openness to help and guidance in any given situation, anyone we meet might be a mentor for us.  And that’s the catch, isn’t it?  We never know where the next inspiration might appear and who might be the messenger, so it’s best to be open to what life offers.

Growing up I used to think it great on Sunday morning to ride with Dad before church to the golf course he enjoyed so much.  There he would treat me to Lance’s cheese crackers and a small, bottled coke dispensed by Napolean Adams.  “Polie” was the shoeshine guy and drink fetcher.  He was also a brilliant mentor for me over the years.

As I got older and got to know Polie as a teenager and then adult, I realized the depth of his intelligence and insight, often well hidden by the discrimination he endured as the hired help.  One day, when I was maybe 14 or 15, he said to me as I passed his small alcove, “Robert, you’ve got something in you that you don’t know about yet, and your daddy does too.”

I was too shy or confused or both to ask what he meant.  As Arno said years later, “A good teacher doesn’t necessarily express an opinion, he merely shows a way.”  That comment by Polie AND my willingness to open to the guidance of someone I trusted and respected have kept me on a journey that has led me to this time on this Sunday morning so many years later.  It’s the journey of a seeker, set on this path many years ago and willing to follow it to its end.

Arno Hart took me aside in my first trade association meeting after I’d gone to work with my father.  He said to me in his thick, German accented English, “Robert, I’ve known you all your life and I’ve known your father longer than you’ve been alive, and you’re going to have a hard time working for him.  If I can be of help, let me know.”  Thus began a 15 year dialogue with this man who had escaped the Nazis by the narrowest of margins.

One of the first things he said to me that stuck with me was, “I don’t have to apologize for the ground I stand on or the air I breathe.”  Hitler had made it so Jews had no choice, they had no ground to stand on and even the air they breathed could be taken away on a whim of some sadistic person.  Arno had made it to the U.S. through sheer determination and strength of will.  He was never again going to apologize for being.  After all, he said, as far as he knew he had not asked to be born.

We are each unique, unprecedented, never-to-be-repeated individuals.  Each of us has something that the world needs right now.  Where my great passion and the world’s great need intersect, there lies my right livelihood.  What do I have to give?  What do you have to give in the world’s time of great need?  None of us has to apologize for being.  Each of us is entitled to live fully but it is up to each of us to stand our ground and find our own place in the world for as long as we live.

MentorBoom: Uncommon wisdom for interesting times.

Welcome to MentorBoom!

MentorBoom is a new venture for me and for those who will be drawn to it.  It is a forum for Boomers to share in and engage with like minded others.  From one another we will gain courage and techniques to deal with the challenges of getting older and finding our place in the new world we are experiencing.  Those of us born between 1946 and 1964 comprise the largest generation the world has seen.  How we move through the coming years will set the bar for those who follow.

I have to be honest and say that I would never have started this blogventure had it not been for my extremely talented and persistent partner, Pamela.  She said she was going to do a blog about food at (www.spoonfeast.com) and that I should think of something I would like to develop as a blog.  What immediately came to mind was a project I’ve worked on for years and about which I have felt stuck.  In part it’s the story of my relationship with a wise old man who served as my mentor for many years.

One thing I found as a result of that relationship is that teaching and learning are never finished as long as we’re alive.  We are all students and teachers as need demands.  You have stuff I can learn from you; I have stuff you can learn from me.  And the wonderful news is: You never know where the next bolt of enlightenment might come from.  As we band together in community, we can help each other move toward our later years in a more thoughtful and aware way.