Joy!
The campus minister at our church asked four fathers to write letters to their children and read them on Father’s Day during the morning worship service. He gave each father a different theme. He asked me to write about my desire for my girls to have a life of joy and meaning. Here’s the letter I wrote:
Dear Ella & Annie,
You may wonder why I often thank you for picking me to be your dad, as if you had a say in the matter before you were born. I don’t know the dynamics of life before birth, but it’s fun to imagine that you get a choice in picking your parents. I can picture you flipping through some cosmic catalog of potential parents and putting your finger on me and your mom saying, “I’ll take these two, please. They look teachable.” And, then, when you’re thirteen and really annoyed with how un-cool you think I am, I can say, “Well, you did pick me, you know.”Regardless of how we ended up together, I am honored to be your dad. And I’m humbled and a little overwhelmed when I think of the challenges ahead in guiding you as you grow into young ladies. If I don’t always think so clearly in what will be teachable moments for you (and for me) in the future, here is what I want you to know about living a life of joy and meaning:"Daddy, we thought your keys would float..."
Jesus said you must become like a little child to experience heaven. Well, right now, you know a lot more about heaven than I do. If you can live your adult lives filled with the sense of wonder and joy you now have, you will be remarkably happy and remarkably unlike the vast majority of people.
So, what I want for your life is more of the joy you have now enriched by the insight and understanding that will come through a life well lived. I wish for you an authentic, awake, abundant life.
I think joy is your default state. It’s not something to attain. You’ve always got it. Anxieties and distractions may obscure it’s presence, but you don’t have to strive for joy. Just drop what’s keeping you from experiencing it. To return to that default state, simply “Be still and know” as the Psalmist says. I certainly don’t have that mastered. Grown-ups seem a lot more still on the outside than kids, but peek into our minds and see how agitated our thoughts are.
Create opportunities for stillness throughout your life by embracing regular doses of solitude and by constantly returning your attention to the present moment. It helps if you can get lost in activities you love for the joy they bring you, not for the approval or applause of others. For example, when I watch you drawing or coloring now, I see both of you so blissfully engrossed that the rest of the world falls away. (By the way: Annie, do please remember to keep your art on the paper, not the walls or floor. Please delay your career as a mural artist a bit longer. Seriously, it’s getting to be a problem…)
Follow a path that makes you truly come alive. It may seem selfish, but if you focus on living an abundant, authentic life and pursue work that feels like play and relationships grounded in selfless love, your joy can transform and awaken those around you who are sleep-walking or struggling through life.
The challenge for me as your father is to “do no harm” to the wonderful start you have as a wide-awake child of God. I want to get out of the way as much as I can. When I try to force or control I know I’m heading in the wrong direction.
The lessons you learn from me and your mom will be from who we are and how we live rather than from what we say. So, please remind us that we need to be more like you. We need to take time to sing and dance and play and laugh with all our hearts the way that you do. And may we be more intentional about simply being fully present with you. To truly listen before responding. To try to understand instead of judging. To know that we don’t have to solve all your problems, and we don’t have to offer a lecture every time things go awry. May we seek to be kind rather than seeking to be right. May we say “Tell me all about it” instead of “I told you so.”
Finally, I want you to know that God is not some distant grandfather in the sky. And I want you to know that heaven is not just a place to go when you die. Heaven is here and now. God’s kingdom is within. And God is in every face you see and every leaf and flower and sunset you admire. Like the poet said, we should constantly be taking off our shoes because, if we saw clearly, we would see that every where we stand is holy ground.
So, thank you, girls, for picking me to be your dad. I am grateful for the adventure and the enlightenment you have already given me. I’m looking forward to many more great adventures to come.
I love you.Daddy
- Joy Gresham
Joyce Johnson
Three years ago I read David Allen’s Getting Things Done and started applying it to my life. I used to take pride in my messy desk and my ability to (usually) find what I needed from the stacks of paper scattered about. Inspired by GTD, Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders, and Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits, I now strive to keep my desktop (including my computer desktop) as clear as possible. Less clutter means less distraction and less stress and, hopefully, more focus and more creativity. It took weeks to get to this point when I first started. But after establishing a system I liked and developing a habit of clearing my desk each day, it’s been easy to maintain this approach. (I also process my email in-box to zero every time I open it. That doesn’t mean I respond to every email right away. I just decide what action is required and where it should reside if that action isn’t happening now. Here’s a helpful guide to “Inbox Zero” from 43 Folders.)
In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind Shunryu Suzuki wrote:
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
Maybe this empty space I work from will help me cultivate a “beginner’s mind” on a regular basis. Endless possibilities…
The NCAA basketball championship is Monday night and, appropriately, TED.com recently posted a 2001 TED Talk by legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. It’s appropriate because Wooden was the most successful NCAA tournament coach ever, winning ten national titles in twelve years. I’ve been a fan of Coach Wooden for a long time, though I was too young to follow him while he was coaching. But his wisdom is profound even when presented in a bit of an old-fashioned (sometimes corny, even) style.
One of the most remarkable insights from a coach whose teams won the most championships is that he never talked to his players about winning. He simply expected his players to give the best effort they were capable of giving. If they did, he was satisfied regardless of the final score. He said there were times when his team ended up with more points on the scoreboard than the opponent in spite of what he felt was a less than satisfactory effort. Wooden considered that a “loss” in his eyes. Conversely, there were games where his team did play smart and play hard and still lost on the scoreboard. He considered that game a success in spite of what was on the scoreboard.
I love that mindset. Sadly, it’s almost a joke today to say “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game that matters.” But John Wooden centered his very successful coaching career around that very sentiment. There’s an eastern, philosophical flavor to his approach. Non-attachment. The game is not a means to an end, but an end in intself. How much happier would we be in our activities, work or play, if we simply focused on giving our best effort rather than striving to get more points or praise or awards or money than the other guy.
Competition is overrated. The competitior whose attention and anxiety are focused on outscoring the opponent is at a disadvantage. Fear of losing certainly is motivational, but it will dilute your focus on your own performance. The greatest athletes often speak of being in “the zone” or “in flow.” They’re at their peak when past and future disappear and they are fully conscious of only the moment at hand. I’ve heard Michael Jordan speak of the basket looking gigantic when he’s in that zone. I’m sure when Ted Williams or Hank Aaron were at their best at the plate in a crucial situation, they’re attention was on the feel of the bat in their hands and the rotation of the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand rather than on past failures or success or on the possible glory or humiliation at stake.
As a fan, I’ve often been distraught when my favorite team loses a crucial game. Why? Why can I not enjoy the effort put forth by both sides regardless of which color jersey comes out ahead in the end. Seinfeld had an old routine that pointed out that we’re just rooting for laundry. If the team wearing my preferred shirt wins, I’m happy. If not, I’m crushed.
“Winning” is not a worthy goal if you aim for true happiness and satisfaction. Its pleasure is fleeting and induces anxiety to keep that short-lived pleasure coming. Aim instead for excellence and for offering your complete attention and best effort to the task before you. “Just win, baby” is not a mantra for happiness. Paradoxically, by letting go of the need to win, you will free yourself to be the best you can be. And, as John Wooden put it, you can then strive to “Make every day your masterpiece.”
Yesterday the Rome New-Tribune published an article my sister wrote about my parents’ business closing. She echoes many of the thoughts I expressed in my previous post. I’m sure my dad is getting a lot of calls from old friends and clients after this article appeared in the Sunday paper. (The photo of my parents in the article is from the 80’s, I think.)
One day when I was in elementary school my dad came home from his job as a promising young executive in the northwest Georgia carpet business and announced, to my mother’s surprise, that he had quit. My mom probably was not thrilled at his initial, spontaneous strategy, but she kept smiling and pitched in and worked while he tried to get started by doing photos in a makeshift studio he set up in our living room. (Our one bathroom also served as a darkroom.) When dad found out a shopping mall was being built in our hometown, his dream started coming together, and PhotoVision was one of the first stores to open in the new mall when it opened in 1975. Five years later he moved the studio out of the mall and into its current location where it has been ostensibly the most respected photography studio in northwest Georgia for many years.
It was certainly my dad’s vision that gave life to the business, but my mom was an equal partner. Her resourcefulness and business savvy were crucial in hard times, and her shining spirit and big-hearted kindness connected with everyone she encountered. People just enjoyed being around her. After my mom passed in 2005, the business just wasn’t the same. My folks always had great young employees working with them, but the dynamic that my parents had as a couple was one of the great draws of their business. Not only did they make great portraits, but their amazing love for each other and their joyful life spilled over into their employees’ and clients’ lives as well. It’s been hard for my dad to put the same heart into his work (or anything else really) without her by his side, and he actually seems relieved to be closing the business down now. He might come back to photography in the near future in some capacity, but for now he just wants to take a break. He deserves it. He and my mom had a great run with PhotoVision. It was a terrific studio and a great little business success.
But for me, PhotoVision represents a dream fulfilled. The decisions my parents made and the way they lived their lives and loved each other continues to inspire me and all who know them. And by that measure, my parents’ adventure was a success beyond even their dreams.
Mom & Dad
I’m surrounded daily by college students who are openly eager to find a path or at least a direction for their lives. “What should I be or do…?” they ask. Not that those of us who are older aren’t challenged by the same question, but college students face the question like it’s their job, with a healthy mixture of confidence and angst. Very few, though, seem to persist in the pursuit of an answer that is truly meaningful to them. They are influenced by others – well-meaning parents, teachers, and peers – who guide them toward a practical, traditional response. So, they get a job doing something that doesn’t genuinely excite them, assuming maybe they’ll get back to that big question soon after they get settled in a normal, adult life.
“You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself. Think of something that you love to do for itself, whether it succeeds or not, whether you are praised for it or not, whether you are loved and rewarded for it or not, whether people know about it and are grateful to you for it or not. How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love.”
You certainly can cultivate such activities outside of your job, but wouldn’t the ideal be to make such soul-satisfying activities the heart of your work? Don’t give up on the quest to live your dream. Start doing at least what you think you love even if it’s on your own time or knowing that it will only be a hobby. Take action and start acting like you are who you want to be, even if you’re not really sure who that is yet.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” Thoreau
Matthew Belinkie at overthinkingit.com pieced together this delightful video montage of great (or at least memorable) inspirational speeches from a wide array of films. This will put a smile on your face if not make you won’t to go out and conquer something:
I posted earlier about the new Vince Dooley statue on the UGA campus. It was unveiled at a dedication ceremony ten days ago. Here’s how it looks:
The British Medical Journal has published a study showing that happiness is contagious more than was previously imagined. Here’s a quote from an article about the study in the Boston Globe:
Psychologists have long known that feelings can be contagious over short time frames or that people reflexively return smiles. But the new social network analysis showed that that contagious effect extends three “degrees” – as far as a friend of a friend of a friend – and drops off with time and distance.
The effects can last a year, researchers said in British Medical Journal.
“Your happiness is not just about your own choices and actions and behaviors and thoughts,” said Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a coauthor of the study and a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School. “It’s like there are emotional stampedes that ripple across this infinite fabric of humanity.”… A happy friend who lives within a mile, for example, boosts your odds of being happy by 25 percent, researchers found.
So, there’s some scientific proof that you can actually spread good cheer and that it ripples beyond the stranger you smiled at to even their friends and families. Your kindness to others is not in vain.
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