Cultivate Equanimity and Awe for Real Happiness

These observations from Mary, 90, really got me thinking. So many of us associate happiness with emotional awehighs and gathering possessions, but Mary believes it lies in emotional states like equanimity and awe.

Equanimity, the ability and discipline to maintain clarity and balance regardless of the forces around us, enables us to develop as true individuals, never before and never again in existence. Only with the development of equanimity are we able to stand in our own unique space, to differentiate our essential being, and thus to offer our particular gifts to the world.

Awe, that rush of quiet passion, that sudden gasp in the presence of great beauty or immensity or unfathomability is another necessary ingredient for the full appreciation of life. Cousin to gratitude, fear, and ecstasy, it overwhelms and enriches us beyond our usual boundaries.

Arnold, 95, Preaches Tolerance – with Humor

I met Arnold, 95, at a New York City senior center. A victim of Nazi persecution, Arnold fled Germany to the United wisdom signStates and made a good life for his family. He believes that curiousity and tolerance are the keys to lifelong happiness. He’s a funny guy, so he offered wisdom with a joke.

You ask about life lessons? I will tell you a story. A father talks to his son, and he says to his son, I want to talk to you about sex. And the son says, “Dad, what do you want to know?”

There’s your answer. We have to learn from the young and always stay curious. I had such convictions that I changed completely. Circumstances taught me that what I believed wasn’t so. One of my advantages is that I am willing to recognize change. In life, we are confronted with constant change, and you can’t be dogmatic. You see what happens with nations, what happens with people when they are dogmatic. You have to be open, be involved in new things.

Let’s Care About the World: Gwendolyn’s List for Living

care for the worldMany of the Legacy Project elders were concerned about the state of the world. Their lessons reflect long lifetimes of observing humanity and current events. Gwendolyn, 80, offers her views about things we should deeply care about and how to act on them.

Among the most important lessons I have learned during my life are the following:

1. The important role of family and the great benefits realized when there is a close knit and supportive family unit.

2. The very deleterious effects of the increasing emphasis on materialism and material possessions.

3. The destructive impacts on the environment caused by overdevelopment and over population. I am fearful for the coming generations.

4. The pervasive dishonesty and lack of integrity of public officials and the sense of hopelessness for change felt by the average citizen.

5. The alarming tendency manifested by our society’s support of political wars, destruction and mass slaughter of human beings.

6. The apathy of the public to critical issues such as global warming.

My advice to younger generations would be to remain close to your families, pursue education, completely avoid drugs and crime; maintain a code of honesty and integrity despite peer pressure to the contrary; work for honesty in government; care about our environment and work to preserve and improve it.

Growing Up Is the Work of a Lifetime

Maurice, 77, has a different take on the expression “live life to the fullest.”

The advice I would give to my grandchildren is to treasure every day of  their existence and to do their best at every task they face. 

I do not believe in “living life to the fullest” in the sense in which that expression is often used.  Most important when you look back on your life are the unselfish things you have done, the love and support you have  given to others, and the sense that you have made the most of your talents and  opportunities.

I have learned that growing up is the work of a lifetime and that  we should strive to continue growing until the end of our days.

“If We Don’t Forgive…” Sr. Clare’s Advice

Sr. Clare, 83, has been a nun for over six decades. She has devoted her life to helping the poor and to the spiritual life. When asked what older people are likely to regret, she told me:

I think generally speaking; unfinished business with others or with what they wanted to do or be. For example, not asking about family history, or failing to pay attention to family stories. Failing to have important talks with people, especially around forgiveness or assurance of one’s regard for them, and failing to forgive or reconcile.

There’s a wonderful saying – I  can’t remember the person who wrote this but something about: “If we do not forgive, we keep the person imprisoned in our heart and our heart becomes a hardened prison.”  

Farewell, Sr. Maria – Thanks for Your Lessons!

The Sisters of St. Joseph are a remarkable group of nuns, devoted to the spiritual life, teaching and the pursuit of social justice. In the Motherhouse in Rochester, NY, I visited Sr. Maria, age 93. Although her body was beginning to fail her, she was clear-eyed and enthusiastic. I have thought about Sr. Maria often, and I was deeply saddened to learn last week that she has left this world (or as she would have put it, moved on to the next life!). Her lessons for living, however, stay on in the Legacy Project.

She told me right off that she was born on Election Day, 1916, when Woodrow Wilson was re-elected the President of the United States. Her parents were Polish immigrants, hard-working and deeply religious.

She grew up in a close-knit Polish neighborhood.

It was a close community because all the people in the neighborhood were from Poland, or Russia or Ukraine, so they were all neighbors from Europe and they maintained their own language. It was a homey place with little stores, mom-and-pop stores, and the meat market was a meat market. It wasn’t everything, it was a meat market. The grocery store had groceries, the bakery was just bakery. It was translation from Europe and it was maintained like that for many years. The Polish bakery was just marvelous. And it was a wonderful business, especially around Christmas time, Easter time, you had to buy tickets to wait in line to do your shopping.

And the church was the center of activity, things were centered about the church, and when we think of people not having a social security, well that wasn’t in vogue yet. But the people – the church groups, the people from the same villages of Poland – grouped together and formed societies. So there would be St. Casimir society, St. Stanislas, St. Lawrence, and each society would have certain plans to provide for the members. We paid like maybe fifty cents a month for dues but if you were sick you would get groceries for a week, two weeks and other benefits. And people from these societies had projects like a dinner dance, activities connected with church to raise funds.

It’s sad because people now are not as close. We knew everybody in the neighborhood. I could name every family on our street, the name of their children, and you respected everybody’s family. If someone else’s mother told you not to do that, you had to listen, you had to obey. And growing up we just thought that our neighborhood, that’s all there was. Our own little world, the stores were there, the grocery stores, the meat market, the bakery, the shoe repair shop, everything was right in line.

Sr. Maria didn’t speak English until she started school, “First grade was a little difficult because I had to learn to speak English and learn how to read in English and my mother didn’t help me because she didn’t know the words, she didn’t know the language. If she tried to say it, she would say it with an accent. So in school I sat on a little step and a girl whose parents were Americanized already would sit with me to help me read, listen to me read.” She was determined to speak “like an American,” and achieved that goal.

Some her most important life lessons were learned during the depression. Her father’s work schedule was reduced, and the family had to learn how to live on very little. “Bread and butter was a treat.” Her advice to people going through current economic difficulties is this: “We should be grateful if we have what we need, even if we don’t have all the delicacies we want. We never knew we were poor. There were people who were poorer. We had enough to eat and that was a big blessing.

An even more important lesson Sr. Maria learned during the Depression was compassion. Even though her family had little, they shared with those who had less.

There was one family whose father didn’t have a job. Wherever he worked he lost his job, so there was no income coming. But I remember some evenings, maybe once a week, my mother would fix up a basket with some groceries, maybe a head of cabbage, some potatoes, vegetables, and put it on their porch after dark. And she herself had come from Poland and they had had hard times. And I remember seeing her many times, if she was going to eat a piece of bread she would pray over it first and she would kiss it sometimes too. Yes, they were hungry many times, so we grew up with that respect to appreciate what we had.

As Sr. Maria retired and grew older, the importance of compassion as a life lesson increased.

The idea that everything we do to help someone else, there’s a return value in it. You realize that you did something for that person, and at the time you didn’t understand it well yourself. Sometimes I receive a message, a note or card, from a student that I taught fifty years ago, and they’ll say that they appreciate what I did for them, that if I hadn’t done that they would never have succeeded. Like this one boy told me recently that if I hadn’t coached him special when he was my eighth grader he never could have gone to high school. He wouldn’t have had that motivation. You couldn’t help everyone, but you did as much as you could to as many as you could.

It’s not surprising that someone who had been a nun for over 70 years would recommend include pursuing a spiritual life among her major lessons:

Well. I think that the first lesson would be that you have a relationship with God and you live by his teachings and his commandments. Because by ourselves we can’t really do too much. And we have abilities and powers, but everything that we have is a gift from God to use and to give it back to Him.

For Sr. Maria, this lesson led again to compassion:

And I think being considerate for other people is important. And there are many small ways and gracious ways to do kindnesses and thoughtful actions. And if I know that I have something I know someone would like, maybe I can graciously get it into her possession without her knowing it. You try to help other people, you encourage others, you assist others.

At the end of our interview, we talked about the end of life. Sr. Maria told me:

Well, you do think about it more often and you do realize that we’re not here forever and we have to face God in the end. I’m not sure if I’m completely at that stage yet. Well, God has been good. You know, I don’t know if I pray as much as I ought to pray for death and acceptance. It’s still kind of, I know it’s going to come, and I tell the Lord: ‘I’m ready Lord – but maybe not yet!” Life is a gift from God and it’s important to keep busy – not just busy, but active. Meaningfully active.

It’s never easy when we lose one of the Legacy Project respondents, but we can still profit from their lessons. And that’s a good argument for asking our loved ones about their lessons for living – while they are still with us!