Engagement Is A Two-Way Effort

Not much new to say here except that if you want interaction with someone or some activity, it will require engagement.  By definition, engagement means interaction and involvement, which, of course, means taking part.  When you take part in something, you are engaged, involved.

There is a school of thought that suggests a person only has to do his/her personal inner work in order for relationships—with people or activities—to work out for the best.  In other words, it doesn’t make any difference what others do in that relationship or activity.  I am here to dispute this.  It DOES make a difference if others in a relationship or activity also DO something that shows their involvement.  All parties need to be engaged if a relationship or activity is to be resolved to the benefit of each of those parties.

You can do your work on your own.  You can gain a measure of satisfaction as you do your own work.  You can feel resolved.  However, a relationship involves more than one party, so it requires all parties to be actively engaged in securing the best possible outcome for each person.  The same is true for any activity involving more than one person.

You cannot make someone else engage.  When the other party or parties do not choose to engage, one of two things happens.  Either, it becomes clear that the relationship no longer exists in actual terms, so you turn your attention to releasing the other party.  Or, you hold fast to your work lovingly embracing the other party until such time as a light begins to dawn in his/her own mind and heart. That can lead to reaching back regardless of whatever risk one may feel.

In his book, “Anger,” Thich Nhat Hanh uses an example of a parent/child relationship to illustrate engagement.

My dear child, I know you suffer a lot.  For many years, you have suffered a lot.  When you suffer, I suffer, too.  How can I be happy when my child suffers? So I recognize that both you and I suffer.  Can we do something about it?  Can we come together and search for a solution?  Can we talk?  I really want to restore communication, but alone, I cannot do much.  I need your help. 

It is often a risk to reach out to another person with whom there has been a long-standing separation due to disagreements or other issues.  For satisfactory resolution for each party, sooner or later that risk may need to be taken.

The bottom line:  ENGAGEMENT IS A TWO-WAY EFFORT ultimately.  Until a way for engagement occurs, hold fast to your love and your dream of healing and happiness.  You will always benefit from your effort.

Your Happiness Is Your Job!

I recently was able to purchase a manufactured home in a small Oregon town heavy on farms, orchards, open space and light on traffic (and traffic lights!).  I had lived in an apartment since retiring from Safeco Life and Investments in 2003 and selling my mobile home in the Seattle Metro area and moving back to Oregon.  I didn’t fully realize until I was actually moved into my new home and began to get settled how totally happy I was.  I suppose much of the feeling came simply from a new environment and new experiences.  However, the longer I am here, the more I realize how many factors there are in one’s life that lead to happiness or the lack of it.

Primarily, of course, our happiness depends on our attitude about life.  Our attitude can be influenced by many things:  friends, relatives, social interaction, money, power, culture, ideals, spiritual activity, environment, and on and on.  What influences we accept as contributing factors in how we live most certainly results in the quality of life we have.  I believe that due to our inherent social nature we enjoy sharing our lives with others who are important to us in some way.  When we feel good and enjoy life, we like to share those feelings with friends and family.  Conversely, when we are in the dumps we may tend to share those feelings with others as well.  If we are lucky, our friends and family may rise to the occasion to be supportive and help us through the current challenges.  Sometimes, not so much!

One of the things I have always done when I was not clear about what I should do about some issue, I rearrange my furniture.  Many times I rearranged the furniture in the office where I was working if there was a particularly difficult issue that needed to be resolved.  I have done the same in my home from time to time.  It just seemed that rearranging the way things were outwardly gave me a new arrangement in my thinking and feeling that would lead to resolving the concern.

It is a major rearrangement when we make a physical move from one home to another.  I won’t go into the potentials of moves that constitute a “running from” some situation.  That is another story for another time.  What I am interested in is a move that truly comes about because one has begun an inner rearrangement of priorities and interests.  I had been feeling the urge to make a move, literally, for about a year.  I dabbled at looking at manufactured homes.  It was interesting that I never actually went in any!  Driving by was my way of flirting with the notion of a move.  I shared my process with only one other person.

Then I received a notice of a rent increase coming up at my apartment.  The rent on my storage locker had already gone up.  That was the catalyst that produced a serious consideration of the pros/cons of purchasing a home.  I had seen a listing of a home in Dallas, Oregon and decided to drive down for a look.  To make a long story short, I turned out to be looking at the wrong listing.  The mobile park was large and consisted of two separate, but connected parts.  As I was driving through the adjacent park, thinking the one I was originally looking for was not what I wanted, I stopped to pick up a flyer for one of the homes.  As I was getting ready to get back in my truck, I saw a lady come up the street waving her hands.  She said, “Do you want to look inside?”  I paused in surprise, then, said, “Yes. I would.”  It was exactly the home I wanted.

I quickly contacted the sales agent and arranged for a meeting.  I offered considerably less than the seller was asking, even after it had been reduced in price.  I also was asking the seller to take half the offer in a note for three years. The agent’s jaw dropped when I told him what my offer was, but he dutifully submitted it to the seller, who now lives in Arizona.  A few days later I got the word, “Start packing.  Your offer was accepted.”  Not even a counter offer.

There were many “co-incidental” factors to the whole process, but to mention one is the fact that I had been living in Greenway Square Apartments.  This home was located in Greenway Mobile Park.  The similarity was not lost on me.

Now, to get to the “Your Happiness is Your Job” part, I wanted to share my good fortune with others.  The result from others was varied, primarily supportive from the ones joining in my happiness.  One person in particular found it necessary to dump on my choice of making such a move.  Seems an inter-personal issue made the person think my action was somehow directed at offending him.  Go figure!  I was taken aback and frankly, it took me awhile to determine not to let any dissenter decide my happiness.  Some folks just can’t stand to see others happy when they are not.

I have had more happiness and interest in life in the last six weeks than I have had in the last five years!  In response to the dissent, I am reminded of the words of Edwin Markham:

He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In!

From the poem " Outwitted”

To fully enjoy my happiness, it is necessary for me to express the ability to include others in a loving embrace.  What the other person does with that love is up to him/her.

Priorities Revisited

Some time ago I shared the following thoughts on this blog:

I don’t WANT to,

I don’t HAVE to,

YOU can’t MAKE me  . . .

I’M RETIRED!!!!

This feeling comes up almost every day when I turn on my computer, open the Internet and check my news feeds and then my blog.  If I haven’t posted an entry recently I begin to feel like I should!  Then I look to the poster on my wall and realize,

I don’t HAVE to!

The strange thing is, I really enjoy writing (when I think I have something to say).  Even stranger is the fact that some of the best writing I do is in those moments of twilight just before slipping off into dreamland, or before a nap, or even in meditation.  Unfortunately, most of those twilight experiences don’t make it to the printed form.  Instead, they drift off into the ethers of Universal Consciousness, perhaps to fall upon some unsuspecting person who recognizes an “Aha!” moment that is useful in some way.

We all have our roots of Being in that same Universal Consciousness that holds all that has ever been known and all that is unknown.  We all have access to whatever we need to know at any given moment.  When we learn that and begin to develop our own pathway into Universal Consciousness, we will discover priceless treasures of every kind.  From these roots of Being we will sense our vital connection with others.  We will discover deep feelings of love and acceptance—for others, and for ourselves.  We will realize that there is purpose in every part of our life, yes, even those strange times where there seems now to be nothing of value.

So, while I don’t HAVE to write, I always find that it enhances my own sense of being.  For me that is what is important. It is a priority because it puts me in touch with my Source. There is so much to learn, so much to enjoy in life and in our relationships with others that I want to take advantage of every opportunity to deepen my connection to the Source of being in which we all exist. 

I will write when Spirit moves me to do so.  I hope that somewhere within the words I share you will find a tidbit now and then that resonates within you in some special way.  I trust you will experience the treasures of health, happiness and well-being that await your discovery.