Friendship is Essential to the Soul

Better to give (by listening) than receive?

Are you using your friends every chance you get? I mean taking advantage of them whenever possible. You should be. I do. It hasn’t always the case but I learned the hard way that’s what you need to do, given we live in a cold, cruel world.

               That's right, you need to use them whenever you can. After all, what are friends for if you can’t use them? Of course, I don’t mean treating them like doormats or flunkies. And ‘friend’ in this case doesn’t refer to acquaintances that go only skin deep. I’m talking about personal relationships that have weathered the stormiest situations and stood the test of time; the kind in which you’ve accepted each other’s uh, peculiarities. You’ve met the skeletons in each other’s closets and despite knowing the worst, you’re still okay with one another. Could be in-laws or outlaws but in the end there’s give and take. Well, not always.

               Some folks, like me, have no trouble giving; that is, listening to a friend. The tricky part comes when I’m the one with a problem. There was a time when I didn’t do a lot of personal sharing (some say I still don’t). But back then I was self-centered enough to believe my problems were so unique that no one could understand. So I didn’t share. What nonsense.

It's no fun being alone with your problems

               In the old days I used to find it easier to reside solely on the giving end of friendships. That is, be the one with the listening ear. It’s only in the last few years I’ve learned to let my friends in when I’m really low, experience trouble or need a sounding board. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them with my problems. Instead, it was because I didn’t believe our friendship could bear the stress of whatever it was I needed to get out. The weight of it all seemed too much to place on someone whom I valued so highly. After all, who’d want to listen to my pathetic life struggles?

               But when I finally learned to trust the integrity of my friendships and started sharing my problems, worries and fears, a funny thing happened: nothing. That is to say, it didn’t negatively affect my relationships. In fact with my true friends, it reinforced our bonds in ways I never dreamed. Being the strong, silent type has its limits.

               Over time, I learned that by simply listening, my friends allowed me to process out loud what I’d been dealing with inside. And it has a therapeutic effect; one that I always knew benefited others but never believed would be of help to me.

              

It's nice to have friends

All of this of course assumes that you even have friends. Friends of a sort who want and encourage you to use them in this manner. Friends you know you can trust to keep you feeling emotionally safe when you lower your guard long enough to get something off your chest. Or admit to something most would view unflattering. Or break down emotionally – in anger, sadness and/or in grief.

               Today, I’m a lot more open with my friends. The result? Deeper relationships, less internal stress (caused from holding so much in), and more enlightenment into who I am as a human being. A long time ago someone told me, friendship is essential to the soul. Too bad it took me so long to actually live into that phrase. But now that I do, life is so much easier. Check that; life is still hard, but thanks to my true friends, I have an easier time getting through it. I wager they’ll say the same.

Find and Embrace Your Purpose in Life

Release the hounds, er... I mean the words.

I am a writer, one who shares his experiences and those of others using words. It’s my claim to fame, even if that makes me a legend in my own mind. I tell stories. It’s my mission in life. My purpose. But hasn’t always been that way.

               I used to be a drifter. It sounds more dramatic than it is but there was a time when I went through life without having a purpose to existence. It was awful. I lacked focus and had no sense of who I was or what I wanted.
               I envy folks who at a very young age know what they want to do in life. Me? I was near into my 30s before discovering it was writing. And it had been right in front of me all along; in my face but couldn’t see it.

               Writing has been with me since birth. Well, maybe it was really grade school but the point is I never considered writing as a way to earn a living. It was fun; something to do when I got tired of bike riding, watching TV, shooting hoops or whatever. Raining outside? Go and write. Grounded in my bedroom? No problem; put pen to paper. Scribing was a pleasure.

Being near any body of water helps fuel my purpose.

               It continued in high school. Then college. I sailed through classes that required term papers. Even then it wasn't as a career option. Instead my motto was, “Show me the money.” After graduation, the primary criteria for taking jobs was how much they paid.

               I was happy for a while. The turning point was as a new home construction superintendent. The money was great; job satisfaction was not. ‘Being handy’ is not in my skill set and building tract homes was just not my thing. It filled my savings account but bankrupted my spirit. It wasn’t my purpose in life and I was miserable. Took me more than a year of deep, honest soul searching to ‘discover’ writing was my calling.

               I’m happier now, though not all the time. Like everybody else, I suffer setbacks and have ups and downs. Sometimes way downs. But through it all there’s my writing. I’ve been a music journalist, publicist, copywriter, strategic communications professional and now social change agent. Sharing stories is my purpose; it’s what helps give life meaning.

              

With purpose, the sky's the limit.

Most folks have at the very least a glimmer of awareness of their life's purpose. Trouble is, they often don’t or can’t pay attention to it. Job, kids, life: a lot can get in the way of realizing what it is you’re meant to do on this earth. A lot of times it’s just a vague feeling - something that pulls at you. And more times than not, it’s right in front of your face. The challenge is recognizing it.

               No matter your age, instilling yourself with a sense of purpose constitutes a huge step in helping find value and meaning in your own life. It also can literally spell the difference between life and death – for young and old. It can steer youth toward a promising future, and can help elders maintain vitality. In both cases, it is the sense of usefulness and value (rather than mere productivity) that is important.

               Caution: your sense of purpose can shift as you age. Another consideration is the impact our culture has on what young or old people are ‘supposed’ to do. Take it from me, both can clutter your mind and keep you from seeing your own personal truth. That said, what is your life purpose?

For Community’s Sake, Tell Your Kids to Leave Town

Leaving the nest; it's for the best.

This is going to annoy some people; some will be resentful, even angry. For others it might be extremely hurtful. But it needs to be said. For it is a truth; my truth. One I personally believe is universal because it affects all people. Rich and poor; white folks, people of color; Christian, non-Christian; disabled, nondisabled; young, old; smart, dim; liberal, conservative.

              The thing is this: parents should encourage their kids to leave town. Quit the place they grew up. For a time. No joke. It’s important, even vital; especially if they’ve lived the same place all their lives. Encouraging your children to live somewhere else for a while helps them to better appreciate and understand their hometown. It helps provide useful perspective on what’s good (and not so good) about the place they grew up, what’s unique and what’s ultimately the same – especially as it relates to folks who seem different from you.

              I count myself fortunate to have had this experience. I grew up in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, before finishing high school in the small city of Battle Creek and then living in East Lansing where I attended Michigan State University (a sizeable ‘town’ in its own right).

              As a kid, I spent a handful of summers on my mom’s sister’s farm in the countryside just outside Youngstown, and every year my parents, sister and I spent a week or so in the mostly rural confines of southern New Jersey, where dad was born and raised.

You'll learn so much.

              After earning my degree, I lived in the Texas city of Houston for a spell and later, smack dab in the midst of things in Los Angeles. Both were sprawling urban affairs. I also did a stint in the desert community of Indian Wells, California. All these places – large, small; hot, cold; fast, slow; progressive, conservative – all of them helped me see my hometown more clearly and relate to the people there in more human ways.

              Vacations can get at this; so can church mission trips, but there’s a trap. First of all it’s short-term; a snapshot. Second, a lot of people who travel to exotic locales stay where they can be around their own kind – places where they can remain within the social security of their familiar cultural bubble. Safe from experiencing other ways of thinking, living and being. It is a sameness that tends to affirm a person’s own way of being as the only right way.

              Yet in the end, doing so does their hometown a disservice. That’s why children need to go; because in order to understand and respect others – really understand and respect them – you must walk among them. In turn, it becomes easier back home to truly value neighbors and not merely tolerate and patronize them.

              It’s easy for some to live in a far (or not so far) off place. For others, less so. Most of us have been conditioned not to readily accept difference. Yeah, we talk a good game, but at best we tolerate it; at worst we ridicule or even persecute it. Because it’s not our way. It’s not what we’re used to. It’s far too alien from our own experience to want to even think about, let alone appreciate. Or understand. Or respect.

              But we’re hurting ourselves. And our neighbors across town. Or next door. That’s because by staying home, you never truly understand what it’s like to not be you or your kind. So for the sake of the community and your children’s cultural growth, encourage them to live for a time in another place. What they bring back might amaze you.

ESPN’s Pictorial Distorts What it Means to Have an Athletic Body

Which one is NOT an athlete? (Hint: it's a trick question)

Has anybody else seen last month’s issue of ESPN Magazine? It was the Body issue; photographic (not pornographic) portraits of sports professionals posing artistically in the buff. I love the theme, which celebrates athletic bodies. But there’s a major problem: the people featured within its pages are not very diverse.

               I’m not referring to race, creed or color. Nor is my beef centered on gender exclusion. In fact, the editors did a fair to middling job including young/old, male/female and people of color. The trouble with this tasteful yet ultimately disturbing pictorial is it only depicts one version of human beings.

               Now I get that this photo spread features athletes. That’s the theme. What I don't appreciate is that they only include bodies that are long and lean. Last time I checked, athletes (professional and amateur) come in all shapes and sizes.

               It’s disingenuous for the photo essay to depict athletes of only one physical type. At the very least, it’s myopic. It’s also insulting. You need only look on the football field or baseball diamond to find truer depictions of the many shapes and sizes of which athletes consist.

Slugger Fielder: seems athletic to me.

               Plenty of high-performing athletes (Detroit Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder, for one), don't look like the ones portrayed in the pictorial. Look at any football team; a lot of those guys carry significant size and girth. You want to be the one to tell them they don’t measure up? Be my guest.

               Those aren’t the only sports in which its athletes didn’t make the cut. Weightlifting and wrestling come to mind. Also glaringly missing are athletes with disabilities. Don’t tell me no Paralympic Games gold medalists were ready and willing. Why were they excluded?

               Just what were the criteria for being or not being included in this pictorial? Was it aesthetics? Star appeal? Something deeper? My guess is some athletes were not selected due to unconscious bias against certain physical types. Was it the editors’ fault? Or was it more a function of our own cultural attitudes about our bodies? A combination of both, perhaps?

               Not depicting professional athletes of all shapes, sizes and abilities sends a mentally and emotionally damaging message that there really is such a thing as the perfect body. Hogwash.

               If your body is naturally long and lean, then it might make sense to aspire to the kind of physical bodies depicted in the magazine. Then again, if your physique is naturally rounder, stockier, minus a limb or whatever, it's unreasonable – check that – it’s ridiculous to aspire to something you just cannot physically attain.

              

Kiprotich: Olympic champ too skinny to make the cut?

This ‘aspiring to the unachievable’ extends to the fashion model world where the men and women are supposedly the ‘ideal’ size. That’s just as dishonest and destructive. Long, lean women and tall, buff men represent a very narrow segment of the natural human condition. Yet we are saturated with these unrealistic depictions of so-called perfection, and can disrupt our sense of what is and isn’t acceptable.

               After railing vehemently about ESPN The Magazine and its one-dimensional portrayal of the human form, here’s a disclaimer. This is the first Bodies issue I've seen and from what I understand, eight other issues with this theme that have been published. That means there are eight other magazines that might feature physical types other than ‘long and lean.’ I hope that’s the case.

               In any event more needs to be done, in media and in society, to celebrate all the various physical forms that humans come in. Not to do so forces us into mental boxes that not even the strongest of us can break out of.