That hit me so hard that I had to stop the CD and think for the rest of the drive.

How many times have I watched Oprah and wondered about my purpose? Even though I created my personal mission statement many years ago and understand the little moments in life in which I live to it; I am often looking for the BIG PURPOSE. What am I REALLY doing? At least now I know the answer.

When I am in that space I am looking for a purpose that will give me recognition. I’m looking for a way to become known for my great works.

And I’m thankful that my soul knows the difference. I’m grateful to my inner knowledge that helps me come back to myself and my true purpose. My teeny, tiny, moment-by-moment life path. My first step is always gratitude. It begins with love of myself and stretches toward the world around me and all who are in it with me.

Thank you, Carolyn, for putting into words a concept which I believe but had never articulated.

Life Student

*This is the name of my class on coursera.org., a world-wide site that offers free college courses online. I’m keeping my head above water, even though it’s been many years since my two terms of college as a teenager.

In the meantime I have been uneducated about early philosophers.  Oh sure, I knew that Plato and Socrates were ancient Greeks. I had heard of Descartes. I could not have, however, connected any of them to much other than the above quote. And, as we all know, I do not lack in self-examination. As usual, my knowledge is general rather than specific.

The subject matter is fascinating. Even more interesting to me is what I have learned about who I am and and, once again, accepting myself as I am. We haven’t covered that in the course. It’s HOW I am learning that has taught me the lessons so far.

I’ve taken enough education courses to know that I am very capable of learning. Most of these were related to specific facts, however, having to do with my career. I had forgotten that my “big picture” mentality is not conducive to learning in a linear fashion when the subject matter is so thought provoking. My early notes on lectures had much more to do with the wanderings of my own mind than those of Socrates or Descartes.

When I was faced with “Study Questions” and a “Weekly Quiz” it brought me up short. I have committed to learning in an academic environment. If I am to succeed in this, I must learn what the professor wants to teach me. 

My commitment is important to me. Not because I am working toward credit or even the Certificate of Completion; but because I want to have this knowledge.

Coursera makes it easy to learn. In this class, over 70,000 of us can listen to the lectures as many times as necessary. We can leave the quiz hanging in the ether and go back to source materials and search for answers…for ourselves and for the test.

And so I realize once again in life that I can do things in my own way. AND, I can learn even more when I push myself to go down unfamiliar roads. My mind is capable of taking me wherever I want to go. As long as my heart is in it.

Life Student

Without having to cite statistics, I can name an extraordinary number of friends and acquaintances who pour huge sums of money into educating themselves and their kids. Those who are of middle-class standing or lower make sure that they save for their children’s college funds by cutting down on restaurant excursions and large consumption items such as cars and televisions. Those who are rich care even more about education in terms of spending. The biggest investment I’ve seen the families of my affluent friends/relatives make is none other than in education. They hire private tutors, college counselors, and SAT trainers. They send their children to academic boot camps and unreservedly finance their extracurricular activities. Even the parents of my international friends exert great effort to send their kids to U.S. universities, knowing that the United States provides the best higher education in the world. In the case that you haven’t seen the price-tag of U.S. universities, especially to international students who do not receive financial aid, I want to inform you that it is high – annual tuition ranges from $20,000 to $60,000 in dollar amounts (forget exchange rates which generally make the tuition even more expensive given the dollar’s high valuation). The point is that there is a major reason why families, of all economic levels, care about education deeply. They are not stupid. They do not view education as a luxury but a necessity, because families understand that education fosters skills, knowledge, and the intellectual prowess to navigate this complex global world. It provides opportunities for professional advancements and likewise higher income and better employment. Emerging from this economic recession and anticipating the intensifying competition ahead, many families realize that the surest way to personal, financial and professional success is by investing in education either for themselves or for their children. If you don’t believe in the merits of education and if you subscribe to the rugged-individualist, wild West attitude that people such as Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly propound, you need to acknowledge first that both Coulter and Bill O’Reilly received stellar education, despite every negative propaganda piece they’ve written about higher education. Ann Coulter was a graduate of Cornell and Michigan Law School. Bill O’Reilly received three degrees from Marist, Boston University, and Harvard. The hypocrisy with anti-intellectualism sentiment is that its most noticeable proponents are individuals who value education and have gone to great length to educate themselves. We thus need to separate propaganda from essential truths when making our choices. It is clear in the actions of many families and even of Coulter and O’Reilly that education is important, because it indisputably helps to bring about financial security and success.

The optimistic attitude that most families I have described hold toward education can be backed up by the present employment trend. Even though success and professional advancement do not solely rely on education level and indeed relatively uneducated but still intelligent individuals such as Steve Jobs have proven that success can arrive via many routes, chance of success dramatically improves with education. One key, empirical basis for this conclusion is that employers demand skilled, trained workers. As lower-end jobs become outsourced, the U.S. domestic job market has grown more competitive. Engineers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, doctors, scientists, and educators are in high demand, while factory workers are supplanted by machines and cheaper workforce abroad. The former list of professions requires credential that can best be fulfilled with advanced degrees. That is why today we observe an unemployment rate of around 4.0% in population with a bachelors degree or higher (that is full employment!) but of a dismal 14% in population with no degree. Thus education is essential for gaining much needed, high-quality jobs.  Problems with our labor market can be corrected with supportive educational policies that would allow more Americans to be trained and educated for employment. For the conservatives who dislike education investment but tout Romney’s policy vision, I would like to add that, aside from Romney’s impressive education credential which only reinforces the value of education in general, Romney makes clear that one’s productivity is directly tied to one’s income. He suggests that Americans who complain of lower wages are unproductive and do not possess the skills required for high-paying jobs. In such case, Romney’s argument only serves to support greater education for all Americans, so that with the skills and the knowledge acquired through education, people can escape the damaging trap of “incompetence” and unemployment.

We also need to understand that expanding education access is not against capitalist, free enterprise ideals. Too many people accuse Obama of enacting big government, and the result of these attacks has been gridlock and obstruction of potentially effective educational reforms. All the while, countries of disparate political, cultural structures such as South Korea, Japan, China, Germany, and India are taking unprecedented steps to invest in research, education, and development. They know that their investment will pay off in the long run, because new ideas generated from a flourishing educational system leads to innovation which sweeps in prosperity. Look at the track record of the U.S. economy, and you can see the undeniable contributions that research and education have made to our enjoyed economic prosperity- computers, internet, polio vaccine, satellites, chemotherapy, etc. Notice that a vast number of jobs created in recent years are due to advances in information technology which has given rise to global franchises such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Hewlett Packard, Intel, and more. Visit Silicon Valley, and  you can experience the vivacity of entrepreneurship that is working actively to generate jobs. Just imagine how many more jobs we can create with a spark of new idea (perhaps in the energy sector) and how many more of those jobs will be available to us if we are better educated. It is, therefore, inconceivable to me that certain politicians are still spasmodically calling for cuts in education while soliciting greater defense spending (excluding those used for wars), which takes up as large portion of the federal budget as education. If you do a simple cost-benefit analysis, returns on education far outstrips its cost since ideas are public goods that benefit all. Military spending, on the other hand, brings few tangible rewards except profits to a few companies with seeded interests in conflicts (ie: Lockheed Martin, Exxon Mobil) and maybe some peace of mind from terrorism…

For reasons stated, it is hard not to see where President Obama is coming from. He wants to build an economy that is robust, one that boosts the success of every household and the nation as a whole. Likewise, he wants us to know that education is the key to this greater mission and that he is, in turn, willing to invest money in the education of Americans who might otherwise forego going to college out of concerns about cost. Therefore, I don’t see why Obama should stop reiterating the importance of education and supporting its expansion. In fact, I hope that he will do more to increase awareness of and investments in education, the solution to today’s job crisis.

Be impeccable with your word.

I’m  quick.  Sometimes I consider this a great virtue and just as often my quickness leads me down the wrong path.

For instance, I’m a darter.  I move without thought.  Because of this I carry bumps, bruises and a collection of scars that continues to grow.  I caution myself as I age…”Slow down.  Watch where you’re going!”

My quickness of movement is not my greatest problem, however.  It is my quickness of tongue.  It is my propensity to blurt out my thoughts.  It is my ability to deliver a clever response in the blink of an eye and the click of my tongue.

When I was younger I prided myself on this.  I had my moments of regret over words that should have been swallowed rather than spewed, but I didn’t comprehend the waves of spiritual damage to myself and others.

I’m still learning to be impeccable with my word:

• To be truthful.
• To be accurate.
• To say only what I mean to say.
• To say it with love and concern.

I’m practicing and learning.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

*The Four Agreements by Michael Ruiz.

Be impeccable with your word.

Don’t take anything personally

Don’t make assumptions

Always do your best.

This was written for and originally appeared on Vision and  Verb on May 14, 2012.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

This poem speaks to me of acceptance.  Of myself.  Of life.  If I heed the admonition, it is another step toward peace.

The Student

I have read Deepak Chopra for years.  He constantly asks me to strive for self-referral. Oprah’s lesson is the False Power of Ego. And Eckhart Telle would also have much to say about ego: the need for the control, the need for approval, and the need to judge.  (Some of that for another day.)

What do I have to say to myself?  How did it take you so long to figure this one out?

When I have been forced to evaluate the difference in who I want to be and how I want to live in juxtaposition to how I have been doing just that, it requires a hard look at why.

I have tried to blame it on everyone and everything.  The truth is simply that I am constantly on the lookout for what others are thinking and feeling.  If there are various groups and I can’t please everyone, I suppose I please the group most like my own tribe.  After all, that’s where I have lived all these years.

When I write “pleaser”, another mini-shock ripples through my psyche.  In all my years of calling myself a pleaser, I have never looked at it from the viewpoint of seeking approval.  Rather, I have felt that pleasing was some sort of subjugation of my own needs in order to serve those of others.  I may not have thought it was a good thing…but I didn’t get that it would never work.

Then, after all of that pleasing,  I vainly been trying to figure out how to “take care of myself”.

What a tedious waste of time!

I know that it’s all interrelated and  I am gobsmacked by the intense resonation that I have hit on something big in my life.

I have foundered on the shore of approval.

The Student

She is a person I have met in many guises.  This is a good opportunity to learn the lessons so that I may not have to sign up for the next class.

I can’t run nor hide from her.  She is a part of my tribe in this place.  I don’t want to claim her and, especially, do not want to be aligned with her.  There is a big lesson to be learned.

She is very confrontational to me.  I am wondering…is it the need to be right?  Is it a jockeying for position as the alpha personality?  Is she pecking at me to see if she can gain my approval?  This causes me to recede further, eluding her emotional grasp.  I work to keep a neutral face.

She is dismissive and disdainful of so much.  She lives in a foreign country and doesn’t seem to admire anything about it.  (Perhaps the weather and the cost of living.)  Does she need to feel greater than?  Does she feel trapped by some circumstance that keeps her here?  Is she unaware of her own attitude?  I want to tell her what is right.  I want to ask her why she is here.  I want to tell her to accept what is without so much angst.  She is making me tired with her words that fly into warfare as they emerge from her mouth.

She is invasive.  She doesn’t allow the privacy of others and assumes that she is welcome (with her large dogs) in anyone’s house, at anytime, without asking leave.  I want to stand in my doorway and say that I am not prepared for visitors.  I want to shield my floor (with its shoes and books tossed helter-skelter) from her sweeping gaze.  I wish I had done my dishes.  I feel I am being judged and found wanting.

The worst is her volatility.  She is not trustworthy.  Secrets of others fly out through her lips if they serve her need for conversation.  She will not or cannot accept a quiet statement but must grab it and twist it, blatting her perception to all within earshot; whether they want to hear or not.  I don’t want to become her friend.  I don’t want to  misunderstood or to be exposed.

So what are my lessons?

If I am not ready for interaction, I should stay in seclusion.  It’s okay to preserve my aloneness.  It is not my wish to maintain an attitude of aloofness and distance.

If I walk openly and lovingly in the world, the people within my space may be more at peace.  They won’t need to pick at me to wonder who I am and what I am thinking.

I am not responsible for the attitudes of others.  If I truly feel my presence in a situation is construed as an association of ideas, I can remove myself, politely and easily.  I needn’t listen, nor need I try to change the flow of ideas that is taxing or disagreeable, unless I am just practicing avoidance of a lesson I should be learning by gather information.

I do have a right to my privacy.  I can  have boundaries and use them when necessary.  Who I am is not subject to the approval of anyone but myself.  I can be comfortable live as I like in my own space using courtesy to provide for those I invite in whether into my home or into my life.

And so it boils down to fear.  Fear that I will be exposed.  Fear that I will be hurt.  Fear that I will be perceived differently than I wish to be perceived.

I think my lesson is to be know that this woman is an extension of myself.  That my fear stems from my animosity toward myself in her. So I must accept myself.

My lesson is to be open.  To know that I will remain standing as a whole spiritual being no matter what.  That only I can detract from myself and I do that when I detract from someone else.

When one is at ease with himself, one is near Tao. This is to let Nature take its own course. (Chuang Tzu)

The Student.

I’m outing us.

Otherwise people will just think we’re copycats.  They’ll wonder why we have such similar thoughts, similar posts, similar styles and EVEN, similar blogs.

Visit her at My Oprah Lessons.

Love her, love me…it’s all the same.  Different journeys along the same meandering paths.