Lee Kravitz's Blog, page 3
November 28, 2010
Isn't Life Curious?
When I was in my early 20s, I spent nearly a year traveling overland in a Land Rover from London to Calcutta. One of my favorite picture-taking techniques during this greatest adventure in my life was to stand in a single location and take photographs in every direction.
In my last post I showed a series of photographs I took on February 17, 1976. Thirty-four years later, these photographs reminded me of how wide awake and curious I had once been. And now, I asked readers, "Where in the World Was Lee?" -- a double-entendre suggesting "where in the world was the adventurous guy I used to be" and "where in the world was I standing when I took those photographs" so many years ago.
I gave the following clues: I was somewhere between Budapest and Calcutta in a city that had been the capital of a major religion and a great empire. Nearby there was a famous steam bath where the attendants still pummeled the stress out of you.
Only one reader got the right answer. Nuray Onoglu (left), who had just finished translating UNFINISHED BUSINESS into Turkish, correctly noted that I was standing in the middle of Istanbul's Eminonu Square (above). "In 1976 when you traveled from Istanbul to Tehran, you must have passed through my home town Erzincan," she added. "I was in high school at the time and had no hope of going to university because my family was reluctant to send me to a big city for a university education. But two years later they moved to Izmir, where I still live, and I ended up studying geology and becoming a paleontologist. I had to retire at a relatively young age and started translating books and happened to translate your book! Isn't life curious?"
It is!
Click here for the winner of Part II of the "Where in the World Was Lee?" contest.
November 24, 2010
A Book Club with a Mission
UNFINISHED BUSINESS, my recently published memoir, was just named the first-ever selection of 1 World 1 Book, a new global book club. 1 World 1 Book brings its members together online to read and discuss "one exceptional book" every two months. UNFINISHED BUSINESS, about the year I spent reaching out to friends and relatives and making amends, will be the club's featured selection for November and December.
Brian Vaszily, the founder of 1 World 1 Book, believes that certain books possess the power to transform both the individuals who read them and the world: "They prompt important questions, greater empathy, positive social action and global unity," he says. To underscore that belief, he features a different charity with each book. For example, when members order UNFINISHED BUSINESS through links on 1World1Book.com, 100% of the club's commissions (plus a percentage of my author proceeds) will go to J/P HRO Haitian Relief Organization, the charity that actor Sean Penn founded in January in response to Haiti's devastating earthquake.
I have long believed that our fulfillment as individuals is linked to our efforts to reduce suffering and make the world a kinder, more compassionate place. That's why I'm so excited for UNFINISHED BUSINESS to be part of the launch of this humanitarian new book club.
To find out more about becoming a member of "1 World 1 Book" (membership is free) or hosting your own book club, click here.
To find out how to get your own book considered as a "1 World 1 Book" selection, click here.
To read the review of UNFINISHED BUSINESS on 1World1Book.com, click here.
Lee Kravitz is the author of UNFINISHED BUSINESS: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things (Bloomsbury). This post first appeared in Unfinished Business, his blog for Psychology Today.
A Book Club with a Mission
UNFINISHED BUSINESS, my recently published memoir, was just named the first-ever selection of 1 World 1 Book, a new global book club. 1 World 1 Book brings its members together online to read and discuss "one exceptional book" every two months. UNFINISHED BUSINESS, about the year I spent reaching out to friends and relatives and making amends, will be the club's featured selection for November and December. Brian Vaszily, the founder of 1 World 1 Book, believes that certain books possess the power to transform both the individuals who read them and the world: "They prompt important questions, greater empathy, positive social action and global unity," he says. To underscore that belief, he features a different charity with each book. For example, when members order UNFINISHED BUSINESS through links on 1World1Book.com, 100% of the club's commissions (plus a percentage of my author proceeds) will go to J/P HRO Haitian Relief Organization, the charity that actor Sean Penn founded in January in response to Haiti's devastating earthquake. I have long believed that our fulfillment as individuals is linked to our efforts to reduce suffering and make the world a kinder, more compassionate place. That's why I'm so excited for UNFINISHED BUSINESS to be part of the launch of this humanitarian new book club. To find out more about becoming a member of "1 World 1 Book" (membership is free) or hosting your own book club, click here. To find out how to get your own book considered as a "1 World 1 Book" selection, click here. To read the review of UNFINISHED BUSINESS on 1World1Book.com, click here. Lee Kravitz is the author of UNFINISHED BUSINESS: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things (Bloomsbury). This post first appeared in Unfinished Business, his blog for Psychology Today.
November 2, 2010
The Music Man
Unfinished business isn't simply about rectifying your wrongs; it's about rediscovering parts of yourself you may have neglected over the years.
In a recent post I asked: "Is there a passion you once had that could add a dimension now to your life?"
Brent Clanton, a long-time radio executive and host of CBS Radio's Talk650/KIKK-AM in Houston, shared the following story of how he recently fulfilled a boyhood dream. It's a wonderful story -- and winner of Part II of the "Where in the World was Lee?" contest.
My father was a music educator. A Band Director at Spring Branch High School and Memorial High School in the '50's and 60's. In 1967, he forsook the Band Hall for the Administrative Principal's desk at Memorial, and finally retired as an educator performing administrative duties.
I wanted to be like my Dad. As a young child, I accompanied him to band contests, marching competitions, and the inevitable series of weekend football games each autumn, perched on the first row in the bleachers, in front of 150 band students, blowing, honking, beating, and crashing their horns and drums. It was mesmerizing. In the spring, Dad would conduct symphonic bands, and there I'd be, on the front row, feet tapping to the beat, and ears absorbing the rich textures of sound.
I loved to hang out in the Band Hall with my dad as he rehearsed brass or woodwind sections, and relished the chance to listen at the front of the room as he worked the entire ensemble through concert pieces ahead of some performance competition. I loved the smell of cork grease and slide oil, of musty woolen uniforms, and the tangy dankness of brassy horn bells.
When I entered Junior High, there was no question I would be in The Band. I chose percussion because my first pick, saxophone, was already taken by about 15 other Boots Randolph wannabe's. I sailed through Junior and Senior High in the top performing concert bands and marched for four years with cymbals, snares and bass drums strapped to my slight frame. I loved it all.
In college there was no time for Band, but I joined the University of Houston Chorus, and traveled to performances around the state with that august group. I loved it.
I wanted to be a Band Director, but Dad talked me out of it, telling me I'd starve (as he was afraid that we had during his band leader years.) So I chose Radio...and starved for the first ten years of that career. A career that brought me full-circle to the University of Houston's Texas Music Festival summer program, and a competition to conduct the TMF Orchestra. My dream come true!
I worked the Facebook connections like a fiend, pimping and prodding and cajoling my peeps to vote for me to be a Guest Conductor for the TMF Orchestra. And I won.
Two days before the performance this summer, I arrived at the Moores Opera House to rehearse with the ensemble our performance of The National Anthem. They didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what to expect.
Most of us in this country--all who were raised here--know the words and music of our National Anthem by heart. It's played at ballgames, PTA meetings, and on all patriotic occasions. The TMF Orchestra was comprised of a fair percentage of musicians NOT from America--less than half the group knew the music.
So I explained the significance of the piece, and we added a drum roll at the beginning that would allow the audience of several hundred to rise to their feet and sing along with us.
The night of the performance, I was introduced, walked across the stage to the podium, and lifted the baton to start the group. The baton was my father's...the one he'd used countless times on stage with his high school concert bands.
And with the first down beat, the drums roaring at the rear of the stage, I knew I'd reached that childhood goal of being "the leader of the band," if only for a moment, if only for a single piece. I loved it all.
* * *
After I read Brent's story, I wondered whether Brent's father had ever regretted leaving his job as band director -- and if he'd been at the opera house that night to see his son lead the TMF Orchestra.
Brrent wrote back: "Being a High School Band Director was (and is) a very time-consuming occupation with very little financial incentive to offset the additional hours: marching practice every afternoon, bus trips every Friday or Saturday night during the football season. At the time he made the job switch, he had four kids, aged 12 and under."
Brent's father had loved the time he spent leading the band, but he never looked back. And although he wasn't able to travel to Houston for Brent's performance, he was there in far more than spirit.
"While my father is not outwardly emotive, he does have a deep sense of history and family pride," Brent explained. "His grandfather's fiddle has been restored and mounted in a shadow box that sits on the mantle above his fireplace, complete with the snake rattles the old timers used to put inside their fiddles. The instrument still plays. So, in the weeks before the performance, when I asked him if I could use his baton, Dad got up from his chair without a word and fetched it from some nook in the corner of his cluttered office and said 'have a good time.'"
This is a story of how a son rediscovered a passion and paid homage to his Dad. But it's also a story of how a father created a legacy with his grandfather's fiddle and passed a baton to his son so that his son could fulfill his dreams.
I had one more question for Brent. "Were any of your kids in the audience when you led the band?"
"My daughter and son-in-law were there," he said. "And they gave the performance the thumbs' up!"
Lee Kravitz is the author of UNFINISHED BUSINESS: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things (Bloomsbury). Click here to share a story with the author. The best reader stories will be inclouded in the paperback edition of the book, which is coming out in May 2011. This post was first published in the author's weekly blog for Psychology Today.
The Music Man
Unfinished business isn't simply about rectifying your wrongs; it's about rediscovering parts of yourself you may have neglected over the years. In a recent post I asked: "Is there a passion you once had that could add a dimension now to your life?" Brent Clanton, a long-time radio executive and host of CBS Radio's Talk650/KIKK-AM in Houston, shared the following story of how he recently fulfilled a boyhood dream. It's a wonderful story -- and winner of Part II of the "Where in the World was Lee?" contest. My father was a music educator. A Band Director at Spring Branch High School and Memorial High School in the '50's and 60's. In 1967, he forsook the Band Hall for the Administrative Principal's desk at Memorial, and finally retired as an educator performing administrative duties. I wanted to be like my Dad. As a young child, I accompanied him to band contests, marching competitions, and the inevitable series of weekend football games each autumn, perched on the first row in the bleachers, in front of 150 band students, blowing, honking, beating, and crashing their horns and drums. It was mesmerizing. In the spring, Dad would conduct symphonic bands, and there I'd be, on the front row, feet tapping to the beat, and ears absorbing the rich textures of sound. I loved to hang out in the Band Hall with my dad as he rehearsed brass or woodwind sections, and relished the chance to listen at the front of the room as he worked the entire ensemble through concert pieces ahead of some performance competition. I loved the smell of cork grease and slide oil, of musty woolen uniforms, and the tangy dankness of brassy horn bells. When I entered Junior High, there was no question I would be in The Band. I chose percussion because my first pick, saxophone, was already taken by about 15 other Boots Randolph wannabe's. I sailed through Junior and Senior High in the top performing concert bands and marched for four years with cymbals, snares and bass drums strapped to my slight frame. I loved it all. In college there was no time for Band, but I joined the University of Houston Chorus, and traveled to performances around the state with that august group. I loved it. I wanted to be a Band Director, but Dad talked me out of it, telling me I'd starve (as he was afraid that we had during his band leader years.) So I chose Radio...and starved for the first ten years of that career. A career that brought me full-circle to the University of Houston's Texas Music Festival summer program, and a competition to conduct the TMF Orchestra. My dream come true! I worked the Facebook connections like a fiend, pimping and prodding and cajoling my peeps to vote for me to be a Guest Conductor for the TMF Orchestra. And I won. Two days before the performance this summer, I arrived at the Moores Opera House to rehearse with the ensemble our performance of The National Anthem. They didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what to expect. Most of us in this country--all who were raised here--know the words and music of our National Anthem by heart. It's played at ballgames, PTA meetings, and on all patriotic occasions. The TMF Orchestra was comprised of a fair percentage of musicians NOT from America--less than half the group knew the music. So I explained the significance of the piece, and we added a drum roll at the beginning that would allow the audience of several hundred to rise to their feet and sing along with us. The night of the performance, I was introduced, walked across the stage to the podium, and lifted the baton to start the group. The baton was my father's...the one he'd used countless times on stage with his high school concert bands. And with the first down beat, the drums roaring at the rear of the stage, I knew I'd reached that childhood goal of being "the leader of the band," if only for a moment, if only for a single piece. I loved it all. After I read Brent's story, I wondered whether Brent's father had ever regretted leaving his job as band director -- and if he'd been at the opera house that night to see his son lead the TMF Orchestra. Brrent wrote back: "Being a High School Band Director was (and is) a very time-consuming occupation with very little financial incentive to offset the additional hours: marching practice every afternoon, bus trips every Friday or Saturday night during the football season. At the time he made the job switch, he had four kids, aged 12 and under." Brent's father had loved the time he spent leading the band, but he never looked back. And although he wasn't able to travel to Houston for Brent's performance, he was there in far more than spirit. "While my father is not outwardly emotive, he does have a deep sense of history and family pride," Brent explained. "His grandfather's fiddle has been restored and mounted in a shadow box that sits on the mantle above his fireplace, complete with the snake rattles the old timers used to put inside their fiddles. The instrument still plays. So, in the weeks before the performance, when I asked him if I could use his baton, Dad got up from his chair without a word and fetched it from some nook in the corner of his cluttered office and said 'have a good time.'" This is a story of how a son rediscovered a passion and paid homage to his Dad. But it's also a story of how a father created a legacy with his grandfather's fiddle and passed a baton to his son so that his son could fulfill his dreams. I had one more question for Brent. "Were any of your kids in the audience when you led the band?" "My daughter and son-in-law were there," he said. "And they gave the performance the thumbs' up!" Lee Kravitz is the author of UNFINISHED BUSINESS: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things (Bloomsbury). Click here to share a story with the author. The best reader stories will be inclouded in the paperback edition of the book, which is coming out in May 2011. This post was first published in the author's weekly blog for Psychology Today.
Lee's 30-Day Unfinished Business Challenge
As I take to the road on the next leg of my UNFINISHED BUSINESS book tour, I feel more committed than ever to helping other people tie up their emotional and spiritual loose ends. In my extraordinary year of trying to do the right things, I learned that tending to your unfinished business can help make you a kinder, more compassionate person. It can help you lighten your load and focus your energy on what's truly important: your family and friends and living according to your deepest values.
In this season of gratitude and new beginnings, I am pleased to announce the first ever 30-Day Unfinished Business Challenge. Commit to taking care of one item on your list of unfinished business -- and I will give you the tools and support you need to succeed.
Need Help Getting Started?
Addressing your unfinished business is a five-step process. It involves:
* Identifying your unfinished business
* Confronting the fears at its root
* Reaching out to the person(s) you wronged
* Making amends
* Reflecting on the experience
Each of these five steps is important to the process. Unless you face your fears, it will be difficult for you to reach out to the people you’ve wronged. Unless you reach out to those you've wronged, you can't make amends.
It is through reflection that you learn the lessons that will help you refine your conscience and make a heart-felt commitment to act in accordance with your ideals.
The Unfinished Business Toolkit is designed to help you address your unfinished business one step at a time. Click here and you will find tips for taking stock, facing your fears, reaching out to others and making amends. The Unfinished Business Worksheet is designed to help you organize and reflect on your experience and to share what you learn with others.
I encourage you to use me as a sounding board. You can email me at lee@myunfinishedbusiness.com or use the contact form.
At the end of 30 days -- or even earlier if you've completed your item -- I'd appreciate your taking the time to share the story of your experience with me, so that (with your permission, of course) I can share it with others.
As I wrote in my book:
"All of us have unfinished business. It can be a friend we lost touch with or a mentor we never thanked; it can be a call we meant to make or a pledge we put on hold. Too often, life takes over and pushes the experiences that might enrich, enlarge or even complete us to the bottom of our to-do list."
The hurdles we face in tackling our unfinished business can seem impossibly high, but the first step in clearing them is usually quite simple: Write an email, or make a phone call. I'm here to help -- and to cheer you on.
Yours,
Lee
In this season of gratitude and new beginnings, I am pleased to announce the first ever 30-Day Unfinished Business Challenge. Commit to taking care of one item on your list of unfinished business -- and I will give you the tools and support you need to succeed.
Need Help Getting Started?
Addressing your unfinished business is a five-step process. It involves:
* Identifying your unfinished business
* Confronting the fears at its root
* Reaching out to the person(s) you wronged
* Making amends
* Reflecting on the experience
Each of these five steps is important to the process. Unless you face your fears, it will be difficult for you to reach out to the people you’ve wronged. Unless you reach out to those you've wronged, you can't make amends.
It is through reflection that you learn the lessons that will help you refine your conscience and make a heart-felt commitment to act in accordance with your ideals.
The Unfinished Business Toolkit is designed to help you address your unfinished business one step at a time. Click here and you will find tips for taking stock, facing your fears, reaching out to others and making amends. The Unfinished Business Worksheet is designed to help you organize and reflect on your experience and to share what you learn with others.
I encourage you to use me as a sounding board. You can email me at lee@myunfinishedbusiness.com or use the contact form.
At the end of 30 days -- or even earlier if you've completed your item -- I'd appreciate your taking the time to share the story of your experience with me, so that (with your permission, of course) I can share it with others.
As I wrote in my book:
"All of us have unfinished business. It can be a friend we lost touch with or a mentor we never thanked; it can be a call we meant to make or a pledge we put on hold. Too often, life takes over and pushes the experiences that might enrich, enlarge or even complete us to the bottom of our to-do list."
The hurdles we face in tackling our unfinished business can seem impossibly high, but the first step in clearing them is usually quite simple: Write an email, or make a phone call. I'm here to help -- and to cheer you on.
Yours,
Lee
October 7, 2010
From Chennai to Chicago, Tough Times Taught Her to Be Kind
The greatest thing about writing an inspirational memoir is hearing back from readers who exemplify the book's core values. I am nominating Uma Girish, 46, a native of Chennai, India, to be the first reader in the My Unfinished Business Hall of Fame. Uma sent me a terrific story about how she learned the importance of being kind. But after you read this story, read on, for you'll meet a remarkable woman who is finding a new and larger purpose for her life during these challenging economic times.
Dear Lee:
My deepest and best friendships have also been my worst emotional triggers. I had a friend (we'll call her Nan) who always called me when she was in the middle of an emotional crisis, or needed a shoulder to cry on. When life was going well, I was usually forgotten. Or, that's how I felt. And, we lived right next door to each other. This up-and-down continued; we talked about it, she promised to mend her ways, I forgave her, we restarted and then the same story repeated itself. It got to a point when I told myself I couldn't take it any more. I cut the friendship. I stopped calling her. I wanted to have nothing to do with her.
Then life threw us a surprise...after an entire lifetime of living in India, my husband and I decided to move to Chicago with our daughter. I did not call Nan, or convey the news to her. She was officially out of my life. A few days before we were due to leave, Nan and I crossed each other's paths. I walked on one side of the road, she on the other, each ignoring the other. When I got home I felt really bad about what had just happened so I picked up the phone and told her we were leaving. All she said was: 'Good luck. Have a good time.' We hung up.
One month after I moved, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Eight months later, she died. That left a huge hole in my life and a heck of a lot of existential angst. I suddenly woke up to the fact that life is precious and that we need to take this journey with compassion, kindness and love for all...for that's all we leave behind. I wrote Nan a long email, owning up for my part in the whole drama and apologizing. She wrote back telling me how angry she truly was with me and how she hated me for giving up on her. I continued the correspondence with kind words, forgiving words and we renewed our relationship.
I traveled to India this summer and made it a point to meet her. We'd made big plans to catch up and lunch together but unfortunately all we got was an hour. My dad took ill and passed away on August 8 while I was on vacation. I'm so glad we had that one hour. We rediscovered the threads that bound us together and made a fresh start for what I've promised myself will be the friendship of a lifetime.
Like so many of us, Uma was motivated to become a more open and forgiving person after a loved one died. The death of her mother awakened her "to the fact that life is precious. . . that we need to take this journey with compassion, kindness and love for all. . .for that's all we leave behind."
I was curious to know more about her, so I sent Uma an e-mail. An hour or so later she wrote back. In response to my questions about what she was doing these days, she told me how difficult it had been for her to get and keep a job since moving to Chicago.
"My mother's death was a catalyst and I woke up to the powerful realization that I needed to make every day of my life count by making someone else's life a little better, by making a difference," she wrote me. "Ironically (and I didn't understand it at the time) none of the jobs that I applied for in the U.S., jobs I was qualified for, came even close." She applied for a job that involved grading English listening and speaking tests, work she had previously done in India. In order to be hired, she had to take and pass a qualifying test. "Every candidate is given three chances. I failed ALL three times!! I was devastated but even as I sobbed on my husband's shoulder, I said the words: 'I don't understand this right now, but when God closes a door, He opens a window.'
"To cut a long story short, I was hired to work in a senior living community. I neither knew what made an American senior tick, nor did I have any work experience in that field. But, soon I came to be referred to as the best employee, had many successes on the job and although this was the job that paid me the least in all of my working life, it was the one that gave me the maximum satisfaction."
In April, due to budget cutbacks, Uma lost her job. But on her own initiative, without pay, she put together a group of eight seniors at the facility. "I teach them 'Life Lessons,' offering them a chance to make peace with all the 'unfinished business' they have been carrying through their lives, so they can die in peace," Uma wrote. "My seniors love the sessions we do...there's tears and nostalgia and laughter...we talk about topics from their past and integrate it with stuff like a grudge they've been holding onto for years, or a phone call they've been putting off or a letter they know they should write but have been blocked about My aim is to take this group to as many senior living communities as I can."
Uma has faced several challenges in recent years -- the death of her mother, a move to a new country, difficulty finding and keeping a job in a troubled economy. But instead of giving in to despair, she's used these experiences to take stock of her life, become a kinder and more compassionate person, and to deepen her sense of purpose. Her off-and-on friendship with Nan taught her about the power of forgiveness and the rewards that can come when you open your heart and make sincere amends. Now she wants to help older people reconcile with friends and loved ones so they can live with joy and die in peace.
I've just finished reading Susan Krauss Whitbourne's The Search for Fulfillment: Revolutionary New Research That Reveals the Secret to Long-Term Happiness. Whitbourne, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, studied the lives of 182 college students over a 40-year period, with a focus on their ability to adapt and change and achieve happiness. What makes us fulfilled -- at any age -- is this, according to Whitbourne: "It's coming to believe in the value of what we are doing with the time we have on this planet. . .We all need to believe that our lives have meaning, that we can accept our flaws, and that what we've done has made a difference in the lives of others."
According to Whitbournes research, the people who were most fulfilled in their lives were "non-defensive, interested in the welfare of others, able to establish emotional commitments, willing to work hard, and confident in their own identities." Those qualities describe Uma Girish -- the first reader nominated to become a member of the My Unfinished Business Hall of Fame.
Originally published In Unfinished Business, my blog for Psychology Today. Have you ever righted a wrong or rekindled a neglected relationship? Share your story here. I will be including the best reader stories in the paperback edition of UNFINISHED BUSINESS, which will be coming out in May 2011.
Dear Lee:
My deepest and best friendships have also been my worst emotional triggers. I had a friend (we'll call her Nan) who always called me when she was in the middle of an emotional crisis, or needed a shoulder to cry on. When life was going well, I was usually forgotten. Or, that's how I felt. And, we lived right next door to each other. This up-and-down continued; we talked about it, she promised to mend her ways, I forgave her, we restarted and then the same story repeated itself. It got to a point when I told myself I couldn't take it any more. I cut the friendship. I stopped calling her. I wanted to have nothing to do with her.
Then life threw us a surprise...after an entire lifetime of living in India, my husband and I decided to move to Chicago with our daughter. I did not call Nan, or convey the news to her. She was officially out of my life. A few days before we were due to leave, Nan and I crossed each other's paths. I walked on one side of the road, she on the other, each ignoring the other. When I got home I felt really bad about what had just happened so I picked up the phone and told her we were leaving. All she said was: 'Good luck. Have a good time.' We hung up.
One month after I moved, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Eight months later, she died. That left a huge hole in my life and a heck of a lot of existential angst. I suddenly woke up to the fact that life is precious and that we need to take this journey with compassion, kindness and love for all...for that's all we leave behind. I wrote Nan a long email, owning up for my part in the whole drama and apologizing. She wrote back telling me how angry she truly was with me and how she hated me for giving up on her. I continued the correspondence with kind words, forgiving words and we renewed our relationship.
I traveled to India this summer and made it a point to meet her. We'd made big plans to catch up and lunch together but unfortunately all we got was an hour. My dad took ill and passed away on August 8 while I was on vacation. I'm so glad we had that one hour. We rediscovered the threads that bound us together and made a fresh start for what I've promised myself will be the friendship of a lifetime.
Like so many of us, Uma was motivated to become a more open and forgiving person after a loved one died. The death of her mother awakened her "to the fact that life is precious. . . that we need to take this journey with compassion, kindness and love for all. . .for that's all we leave behind."
I was curious to know more about her, so I sent Uma an e-mail. An hour or so later she wrote back. In response to my questions about what she was doing these days, she told me how difficult it had been for her to get and keep a job since moving to Chicago.
"My mother's death was a catalyst and I woke up to the powerful realization that I needed to make every day of my life count by making someone else's life a little better, by making a difference," she wrote me. "Ironically (and I didn't understand it at the time) none of the jobs that I applied for in the U.S., jobs I was qualified for, came even close." She applied for a job that involved grading English listening and speaking tests, work she had previously done in India. In order to be hired, she had to take and pass a qualifying test. "Every candidate is given three chances. I failed ALL three times!! I was devastated but even as I sobbed on my husband's shoulder, I said the words: 'I don't understand this right now, but when God closes a door, He opens a window.'
"To cut a long story short, I was hired to work in a senior living community. I neither knew what made an American senior tick, nor did I have any work experience in that field. But, soon I came to be referred to as the best employee, had many successes on the job and although this was the job that paid me the least in all of my working life, it was the one that gave me the maximum satisfaction."
In April, due to budget cutbacks, Uma lost her job. But on her own initiative, without pay, she put together a group of eight seniors at the facility. "I teach them 'Life Lessons,' offering them a chance to make peace with all the 'unfinished business' they have been carrying through their lives, so they can die in peace," Uma wrote. "My seniors love the sessions we do...there's tears and nostalgia and laughter...we talk about topics from their past and integrate it with stuff like a grudge they've been holding onto for years, or a phone call they've been putting off or a letter they know they should write but have been blocked about My aim is to take this group to as many senior living communities as I can."
Uma has faced several challenges in recent years -- the death of her mother, a move to a new country, difficulty finding and keeping a job in a troubled economy. But instead of giving in to despair, she's used these experiences to take stock of her life, become a kinder and more compassionate person, and to deepen her sense of purpose. Her off-and-on friendship with Nan taught her about the power of forgiveness and the rewards that can come when you open your heart and make sincere amends. Now she wants to help older people reconcile with friends and loved ones so they can live with joy and die in peace.
I've just finished reading Susan Krauss Whitbourne's The Search for Fulfillment: Revolutionary New Research That Reveals the Secret to Long-Term Happiness. Whitbourne, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, studied the lives of 182 college students over a 40-year period, with a focus on their ability to adapt and change and achieve happiness. What makes us fulfilled -- at any age -- is this, according to Whitbourne: "It's coming to believe in the value of what we are doing with the time we have on this planet. . .We all need to believe that our lives have meaning, that we can accept our flaws, and that what we've done has made a difference in the lives of others."
According to Whitbournes research, the people who were most fulfilled in their lives were "non-defensive, interested in the welfare of others, able to establish emotional commitments, willing to work hard, and confident in their own identities." Those qualities describe Uma Girish -- the first reader nominated to become a member of the My Unfinished Business Hall of Fame.
Originally published In Unfinished Business, my blog for Psychology Today. Have you ever righted a wrong or rekindled a neglected relationship? Share your story here. I will be including the best reader stories in the paperback edition of UNFINISHED BUSINESS, which will be coming out in May 2011.
September 28, 2010
Bite Off More Than You Can Chew?
One of the great joys of writing a book is hearing from old friends who have read it. I hadn't seen my high-school buddy Rick Porter in nearly 40 years. And then we met for coffee while I was vacationing with my family near his home on Cape Cod. A few days later, Rick sent me the following email. He had just finished reading the chapter in UNFINISHED BUSINESS about a promise I had made but failed to keep to a boy in a refugee camp. (I had told the boy that I would fill the camp's library with books, which I didn't even begin to do.) It took me 15 years but, with my daughter's help, I finally realized that I had been unable to fulfill my promise to the boy because I had bitten off far more than I could chew, something I too-often do. My 13-year-old daughter convinced me that one box of books, assembled by her and her siblings, would constituent a genuinely useful gift to Kakuma's library. The broader lesson for me was: If I'm going to fulfill my promises and contribute to the benefit of other people, I need to scale down my ambitions and make them easier to achieve in the context of my everyday life. It was a lesson that resonated with my friend Rick, who is a Presbyterian minister.
Pastor Rick wrote: "I really liked your daughter's wonderful idea to simply buy, pack, and send some children's books to the refugee camp. I especially loved your insight about SCALE. My whole life I've wanted to be involved with BIG things: events, congregations, budgets, movements. I always longed for the splash, panache, flash that seemed to emanate from my high-life parents. But, since college, in God's wisdom, I've continually been placed in places of 'downward mobility' (to use Henri Nouwen's term): a counter-cultural campus ministry, a less-than-well-known seminary, a small urban fringe church that did not grow in numbers over 21 long years, and work in two small Christian schools. I've had to shed my dream of the big for an appreciation of 'Jesus' math.' a term my pastor uses for counting by ones. If I use that measure, I have touched many lives, one or two at a time. And God only knows how those years of ministry will bear fruit. In this vein, I love the prayer of Moses in Ps. 90: 'Establish the work of our hands, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.' In other words, we can't control the results of our work; we leave them to Him."
Although I'm Jewish and still struggling to define my personal belief in God, I love the idea of 'Jesus math' and the notion that our acts of kindness and mentorship add up, one person at a time, to a better world, even though ultimately we can not control the results. In future blogs I'll share some thoughts about Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest and theologian who spent the last years of his living and working in a small community of developmentally disabled adults. I'll also share Pastor Rick's favorite "unfinished business" quote front the Bible. Hint: It's in the Book of Job.
Pastor Rick wrote: "I really liked your daughter's wonderful idea to simply buy, pack, and send some children's books to the refugee camp. I especially loved your insight about SCALE. My whole life I've wanted to be involved with BIG things: events, congregations, budgets, movements. I always longed for the splash, panache, flash that seemed to emanate from my high-life parents. But, since college, in God's wisdom, I've continually been placed in places of 'downward mobility' (to use Henri Nouwen's term): a counter-cultural campus ministry, a less-than-well-known seminary, a small urban fringe church that did not grow in numbers over 21 long years, and work in two small Christian schools. I've had to shed my dream of the big for an appreciation of 'Jesus' math.' a term my pastor uses for counting by ones. If I use that measure, I have touched many lives, one or two at a time. And God only knows how those years of ministry will bear fruit. In this vein, I love the prayer of Moses in Ps. 90: 'Establish the work of our hands, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.' In other words, we can't control the results of our work; we leave them to Him."
Although I'm Jewish and still struggling to define my personal belief in God, I love the idea of 'Jesus math' and the notion that our acts of kindness and mentorship add up, one person at a time, to a better world, even though ultimately we can not control the results. In future blogs I'll share some thoughts about Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest and theologian who spent the last years of his living and working in a small community of developmentally disabled adults. I'll also share Pastor Rick's favorite "unfinished business" quote front the Bible. Hint: It's in the Book of Job.
September 20, 2010
'I feel like I just won the lottery."
She thought that a thousand dollars was the least she could offer to repay an old debt. Would her husband agree? A real-life story from a reader in Massachusetts. “One thousand.” “One thousand dollars?” Sid asked. With that dollar amount, I had gained my husband's full attention. “She helped us when there was no one, “ I explained. “I’m not sure I would have made it without her.” My husband didn’t say a word. He just looked at me with eyes that remembered the pain. ...
September 15, 2010
Setting the World Right
She thought that a thousand dollars was the least she could offer to repay an old debt. Would her husband agree? A real-life story by Debbie Mariano, of Scituate, MA. “One thousand.” “One thousand dollars?” John asked. With that dollar amount, I had gained my husband's full attention. “She helped us when there was no one, “ I explained. “I’m not sure I would have made it without her.” My husband didn’t say a word. He just looked at me with eyes that remembered the pain. ...
