Category: Ignatian Spirituality

In the late 90’s, there was a little book that came out entitled, Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff, and it became a best seller.  Basically, the book is filled with little tips and stories to help us realize that we can do all kinds of things to reduce the stress in our lives.

I have been doing some housecleaning lately, and one of my tasks is to donate a bunch of old books to the public library.  I had my hand on this book, written by Richard Carlson, more than once.  But in the end, it made the cut.  This morning, I decided to flip through it, and I came up with a good thought for today’s blog:

Many people live as if life were a melodrama- “an extravagantly theatrical play in which action and plot predominate.”  Sound familiar?  In dramatic fashion, we blow things out of proportion, and make a big deal out of little things.  We forget that life isn’t as bad as we’re making it out to be.  We also forget that when we’re blowing things out of proportion, we are the ones doing the blowing.

I’ve found that simply reminding myself that life doesn’t have to be a soap opera is a powerful method of calming down.  When I get too worked up or start taking myself too seriously, I say to myself something like, “Here I go again.  My soap opera is starting.”  Almost always, this takes the edge off my seriousness and helps me to laugh at myself.  Often, this simple reminder enables me to change the channel to a more peaceful station.  My melodrama is transformed into a “mellow-drama.”

No matter what, there’s someone who has it worse than us.  I think it would really help if we could just start getting over ourselves and laugh things off a bit more often.

It took me awhile to find a picture of an office that looked worse than mine.  Well, here it is.  Luckily, mine wasn’t that bad, but it was getting there.  It is truly amazing how quickly the junk piles up.  Although I have my own office, it’s pretty small, and during the year, when I’m running programs for hundreds of people out of it, well, I get buried.

A few weeks ago, I really started getting frustrated with myself for letting it get this bad.  I couldn’t find some things that I needed, and it took way too long to locate them.  I decided that once classes were over, I’d get to cracking.  Classes ended Thursday.

Unfortunately, today was an absolutely beautiful day here in Maryland.  But, I made a commitment to myself, so around 9:00 this morning, I began.  I didn’t finish up until about 6 pm, and there’s more to do.  But, it felt fantastic to throw so much unneeded stuff into the recycling dumpster behind our building.

I don’t know why I kept so much outdated material. I guess it has to do with our culture.  We keep thinking we’re going to have time to read this or that article or book, but the time never comes.  The “when I have the chance” pile gets out of control.  Maybe you’ve been there too?

They say that if you haven’t touched something for six months, you should throw it out.  I think that’s going to be my new rule, except I want to expand it for the school year, so I’m going to give myself an extra three months.  Going forward, I’m going to stand near a recycling bin when I look through my mail.  I’ll keep only the most important things.

As I was cleaning, I had an interesting thought.  I wonder if we keep things around to trick us into believing that things are what they represent.  For instance, I had a picture one of the kids in Life Teen years ago, taken on a trip to Arizona.  It was in this funny little teepee frame, and I think I kept it up on the shelf because of the frame.  Well, there it sat, collecting dust.  Ben has long since graduated from college and is now working for his dad in the plumbing business.  I can remember that trip without the picture, thanks very much.  The funny thing is, I have a far more meaningful group shot taken on the same trip.  Ben’s teepee went into the trash and up when the group shot.

One is enough.  That’s going to be a new motto for me.  It seems like we have to have more and more to make us feel happy, but in some sense, doesn’t having all these things leave us even more frustrated and wanting more?

Even though I didn’t finish, I was pretty happy with myself when I walked out of the office.  I’m going to be even happier when I get everything done tomorrow.

In the next several weeks, I’m going to have a new employee starting.  I’m still not sure the person we’re going to select, but I’m already looking forward to meeting with him/her in my nice, clean, and organized office.

I’m moving ahead, focusing on the here and now, not so much about the past.  I don’t need to keep all the old stuff around.  Certain precious things, yes, by all means.  Ten year old forms, books and magazines that I’ll never look at, no thanks.  Off to be recycled into something better.

Don’t you just feel good thinking about it?

I was reading a little motivational book this morning, and I came across something worth sharing.

I heard a great story recently about a guy who decided to send flowers to the grand opening of a friend’s restaurant.  At the grand opening, he decided to check out the flowers he’d sent.  Much to his dismay, he discovered that he’d sent a white wreath that said, “May you rest in peace.”  Of course, he panicked and stepped out to call his florist.  The florist said, “Bob, I’m not worried about you because as we speak, there’s a guy being buried who got a dozen roses that said, “Good luck in your new location.”

It seems like we get these little curve balls thrown at us just about every day.  For me, yesterday would have been a great example.  We’ve been working on a big project.  As we were finishing up, we picked up on a couple of errors that hadn’t been noticed previously.

So often, the little errors (and sometimes great big ones) are missed because we are so busy.  To do things right, you have to take your time. Think it through.  Have a Plan B.

We worked through our issues, and got the project done.  When you stop and think about it, there are very few problems that can’t be resolved.

Life is too short to dwell on the problems.  Your valuable time would be better spent working on the solution.

On Thursday mornings, I’m the lector at 7:00 Mass, so I have to get up earlier than usual.  In the winter, it’s hard to get out of that warm bed.  But at this time of the year, no problem. 

In his homily, our priest talked about making a choice in how you live your life.  He said that you could go through life depressed, angry, bitter, judgemental, and a generally unpleasent person to be around.  Or, you could approach your daily living positively, focusing on the goodness that surrounds you, whether that manifests in people, places  or things.  We can choose to see the good in people, or we can focus only on the not so good.  I think its sometimes a lot harder to concentrate on positive thinking, but in the end, I can’t help but think that’s what God calls us to do.  

I don’t mean by this that we mask or deny the problems and difficulties, but rather choose not to dwell on them.

A few years ago, I had the chance to take a group on a mission trip to Mexico.  We were there for several days, and I had never seen poverty like that experienced by the people we met.  The photo above was taken in a church in the middle of nowhere.  It had been built a few years earlier, but the people had no money for windows.  In fact, they lived in shacks surrounding the church.

 They gathered each Sunday in a church with no doors, no windows, no heating or air conditioning.  But it was one of the most joy-filled and beautiful Masses I had ever been to.

In their poverty, the Mexican people I met chose to look beyond their situation in life, and instead focused on the good they saw all around them.    The people, especially the childen, were grateful that they had a church with a roof.  The rest will come later, and they trusted in God’s providence to provide.

So, as you read this email, think about your approach to life.  What do you choose to focus on?  Do you dwell on the negative, or seek out the goodness in people and situations?   What choice will make you a better, happier person?  What will it be?