Tag: positive

Running Against the Wind

Rachel Henry3 Comments

Highly scientific claim of the week: you can only feel the wind when you’re moving against it—hurricanes, tornadoes and the like exempted.

Evidence Exhibit 1: When I went running up the canyon near campus this week, it was hot on the way out but breezy on the way back. The breeze could have started right at the moment I turned around, but I suspect not. Still, the situation may warrant further investigation, so—

Evidence Exhibit 2: When I lived in Chicago, a friend and I rode our bikes next to the lake. I finally learned that when I thought I was super speedy biker person, in reality a significant tailwind was giving me a boost. But I never physically felt it against my skin until I turned around and rode into it.

Conclusion: I think much of life is like this. We tend to notice the things that aren’t going our way more readily than the things that are. Personally, I prefer for everything to line up exactly the way I want it to—or I think that’s my preference. It’s never happened, so who knows how I’d actually react.

There’s a Chinese story that might explain why it hasn’t. A farmer’s horse ran away. All his neighbors said, “Oh, what terrible luck!” He said, “Maybe good, maybe bad.”

Then the horse came back leading an entire herd of horses right into his corral. His neighbors all said, “Oh, what good luck!” He said, “Maybe good, maybe bad.”

One day, his son was trying to break one of the wild horses, and he fell off and broke his leg. His neighbors all said, “Oh, what bad luck!” He said, “Maybe good, maybe bad.”

Then a war came, and his son was unable to fight because of his broken leg. I think you know what everyone said.

I don’t know why the direction I want to go can’t be the “maybe good” direction all the time, but I do know the breeze felt good on a hot day.

Beyond Annoying

Rachel Henry1 Comment

One possible moral of the story: annoying people may be just the ones who save your life. At least that was my conclusion at the end of The Way, directed by Emilio Estevez and starring Martin Sheen.

Sheen plays a doctor, Tom, whose son dies during a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. When Tom goes to collect the body, he decides on a whim to walk the route with his son’s ashes.

Along the way, he meets three annoying fellow pilgrims. One is overly friendly-annoying, one is mean-annoying, and one is just straight up, full-of-himself-annoying. They form a little community that Tom tries to avoid being part of. Then one day, they take care of him when he can’t take care of himself, and he begins to see and appreciate their good-heartedness.

I would like to remember more often to look at people’s hearts instead of their failings. I have developed my fault-finding capabilities well beyond a useful level.

Seeing others’ shortcomings is easy because we all have them. It takes a little more attention to focus on what’s wonderful about a person, to let their quirks roll by while recognizing their gifts, or to simply enjoy the whole person, the jumble of flaws, talents, and grace that we all are.

A caveat: I’m not talking about the people who suck the life out of you or make you feel constantly inadequate or afraid. Those people aren’t annoying; they’re toxic. If you want to work your way up to finding the good in toxic people, I recommend doing it long distance without any actual communication.

After his fellow pilgrims rescued Tom, they all picked up their bags and kept walking. Because we are all on the same road and like it or not, we are on it together.

Ode to Friends

Rachel Henry4 Comments

To really milk your birthday to its utmost potential, don’t organize your own party. That way, multiple small groups of friends will take you out for a lot of individual birthday meals.

This lack of planning also gave me a lot of chances to think about how great my friends are—and not only because they were feeding me. Here are just a few of the ways they are awesome.

They are courageous. Whether traveling through a developing country in a wheelchair, caring for an elderly parent, or facing their own death, they complain little.

They don’t deny the difficulties of life but don’t dwell on them too much. They allow anger and grief and joy and love and can laugh at the ridiculous during good times and bad.

They work hard and care not only about the quality of their work but also about how they treat those they work with. They don’t spend much time blaming other people.

They are willing to change their minds after reflecting on something and regularly take the time for that reflection.

They are funny and kind and resilient and generous and they make me laugh. And the crowning achievement—they like to eat and cook really well.

To steal a few brilliant phrases from a graduation speech by a young woman named Rebekah Frumkin who is much smarter than I was at twenty-two, my friends “[square] the serious with the silly” and “[view] the world with humility and candor” (from a commencement address given at Carleton College).

All this helps me inch toward accepting that life is not about having everything work out well for everyone—as defined by me—but about how we react to the highs and lows. Not because I like it or it makes sense. Not because the highs and lows aren’t real but because they are and life is simply more enjoyable when we focus our mental and emotional energy on the things we’re grateful for, like amazing friends.