Nat

I read an article today in which the author wrote that joy is an inherent component of our character, not just the potential to experience joy, but joy itself. We are born with it. It is a divine gift. He went on to say that when we feel less than joyful, we don’t need to work to find some external element to bring us joy (a new job, money, a vacation). We just need to look inside ourselves and remember the joy that is already there.

He went on to discuss working at a job in particular, repeating the idea that to find satisfaction in our work, we don’t need to “do what we like,” we can just learn to “like what we do.” It has the advantage of bringing us quicker relief.

There is nothing new in this, of course. Michael and I read and comment on writers and teachers who, over the course of centuries advised that our answers lie within our minds. We must work to master them. I was just struck today by the idea that our shift in attitude starts by acknowledging what is already there, what is already true.

I came to my office to clean up some of the piles on my desk. I never feel I have time for this on a workday, but today, without the commotion of meetings and emails, I can work at the pace I like best: slowly.

So there’s a trick to liking what I do: find a way to do it slowly. It’s very relaxing. Now if only I can remember that on Monday morning.

Any ideas?

Two of my friends spoke to me yesterday about taking a risk. They are facing some financial uncertainties and decided to spend some money on themselves anyway. For one it was to have an organizer come in and help her arrange files in her office. She knew this would give her peace of mind that she could find important records if someone asks to see them.

For another, it was to rent an office so he would have a place to work away from his house. Neither of them had to spend the money, and the thriftier choice would have been not to spend. Still, they have both been practicing how to expect abundance. They each felt that spending the money was going to take them closer to what they wanted to achieve. My friend with the organizer was smiling so broadly I could feel it over the phone.

Each of them told me that I could learn a lesson about how to have faith. When we stay on the lookout for what will move us toward joy, we will be rewarded with greater courage. It is not the risk itself but the motive to move towards one’s dreams despite the risk that gives us a greater sense of power and freedom. Faith will do that for them. It can do it for you and me.

My friends Flo and Connie have commiserated with me about the challenge of too much paper. Flo’s advice to take it one piece at a time is the only advice that solves the problem of mess, whether it is small or large.

The real problem comes when the mess grows so big that the sheer volume of it overwhelms me. At a certain point, I start to tell myself it is so bad that I wouldn’t know where to start. Flo reminds me: it doesn’t matter where I start, only that I start by picking something up and putting it away.

Tonight Connie told me that something told her to start cleaning up her mess, her paper. Then she hired someone to get her started, and they worked for 11 hours over three days. The most important piles had drifted to the top, she said. I found that encouraging because I have a sense of keeping the most important things where I can get to them, at the top of my piles.

My instincts aren’t completely dead. They are helping me even when I am weary. I feel the same about what I need to do to feel better about things: start with some small action. This week, Connie and I decided to call and coach one another twice a week until both of us are more un-stuck. She sounded full of purpose tonight, after what she would call a “rampage of appreciation.” There are far worse places to start.

I can start by being grateful that she and I have reached out to one another.

It’s an important milestone in American movies and television shows, the high school reunion. My wife and I, who were high school classmates, went to our 25th reunion on Saturday. We had a great time. One of the funny things about our being married is that we had almost no friends in common back then, and we never really knew one another. So now that we are married, our classmates have a hard time connecting the dots. We don’t naturally fit together in the experience of most of them.

Still, it’s really nice to go back with someone who knows the school and the class as well as knowing you. We met some other very nice spouses, who brave the nostalgia, the in jokes, the reminiscences. They were all really good sports.

Contrary to what movies lead you to expect about reunions, ours was very low key. There are some very high-powered successes in the class, accomplished business people, artists, television personalities, but this group continues to treat the rest of us, mere mortals, as valued friends. Our class was never much about money–we were at a boarding school with small dorm rooms and no dress code,–so it was actually kind of hard to tell who was wealthy then. Now you can tell from the size of gifts to the annual fund, but people don’t throw it in your face.

Mainly it was a treat to be in the company of people who were my friends during an important stage of my life. We were the witnesses to one another’s dreams and ambitions and achievements. In an era at the school marked by very little faculty involvement outside the classroom, we raised ourselves and applauded one another.

The most meaningful part of our graduation ceremony 25 years ago was the actual handing out of diplomas. By school tradition, the Head of School stood at the top of a circle, which consisted only of the class. The dean handed him diplomas, he read the name, and the circle of students passed it around until it reached its recipient. We all stood witness to one another.

It was lovely to do so again, even for a day. To see the new children, the old smiles behind slightly wrinkled faces, to hear what our old friends think about, are proud of, worry about.

To remember who they were and who we were in their presence.

Since my father died a year ago, I have become messier than ever before. The disorder I create around me reflects my inability to place everything where it belongs. Looking at the piles of papers, books, and clothes strewn around my desk, I realize that, for the moment, I know how to start things but not how to finish them. I could analyze this tendency, analyze myself, and conclude that I am shying away from endings. Maybe it is that simple.

I don’t really want to turn the page. Dropping items wherever I am lets me avoid finality of any kind.

But it’s also a nuisance. When I was very young, I looked around my bedroom one day and decided that I didn’t want to live in the middle of a mess. From that point until I married twenty-two years later, I carefully put everything away: clothes, papers, pens, books. I’ve lost that habit, lost it long before I lost my father. It’s just that I am more likely to look around at the mess I’ve made now and think, “I will never be able to clean this up.”

At the same time, there does come a point at which you say to yourself, “Enough.” There are other people who are bearing up under much more tormenting circumstances. Who am I really to let everything go?

My wife always tells me that the way you clean up a mess is to pick up one thing at a time. I have always known she was right about that. The trick is to go ahead and start.