When is it Time To Celebrate ...
And What You Need For the Journey
By W. Owen Thornton BA

Human kindness does take time, persistence, hope and love to achieve.  But all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.  First, let me celebrate with you.  I have received news that I have a conditional offer to go to McMaster University in Hamilton to study philosophy at the Ph.D. level.  I'm jumping for joy and I wanted you all to know.  So naturally, the time to celebrate is upon completion of an important goal.  (Yay!)

But let me tell you there were some doubts along the way.  I was fairly certain I wasn't going to get in this year.  Time.  Sometimes when we need to change in order to be kind, we need to give ourselves time to make that change.  Change in human beings, can be slow as we work through our old modes of being, set them aside and pick up the new modes of being that we desire for ourselves.  In this instance, had I not received a positive response to get in to university for Ph.D. work this year, I would have needed to allow myself time ... time to reapply.

And in waiting that year ... had I needed it ... I would have needed to allow myself the time to wait ... to wait to apply again ... to wait to apply so that I could be kind enough to myself in order to give myself another chance at my dream.  I was mentally prepared for that.  You need to be mentally braced for the time you will have to wait to fulfill your dreams. 

When we're in the waiting place (Suess: Oh the Places You'll Go!) that's when we also have to have persistence.  Persistence is a strange gift to human kind.  Sometimes, when we want to do something ... when we want to achieve something we need to keep hammering away at it.  Sometimes, we need to pick up our ball and go home: the universe is telling you to try something else ... to do things a different way.  And sometimes when life is like that, we're like Bruce in Bruce Almighty:  We're asking for a sign and a truck load full of signs pulls in front of us (quite literally) and these signs say: stop; wrong way; do not enter.  It seems to me that this is a very difficult place.  Do you keep pressing forwards, do you try another way, or do you stop and recalibrate and try for another goal?  I can only say this.  Be more willing to be flexible.  Be willing ... and this is rather mystical ... to see the signs.  Sometimes they ARE there.  Sometimes we just don't want to see them.  When we're in the waiting place, perhaps while we're trying ... again ... maybe that's when we should pick up another ball and throw it ... see what it's like ... try it on for size.  If it bounces back ... maybe we're meant to go in that new direction.

Hope is a daring thing.  Hope for change ... hope for success.  Hope is a great gift for human kindness.  There are two little boys in the movie Angels in the Outfield.  They are wards of the state about to either be adopted or farmed out into the foster program.  They have a rather bare existence ... though their caregiver is wonderful ... even if she is poor.  We need to be like the one who keeps saying, "It could happen!"  If you're looking for a goal, you need to believe that, "It could happen."  Though goals do need to be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timed.  For example if you want to be a published author, you'd better be able to write well enough to give yourself a chance.  In regards to dreams and goals, however, I recommend prayer or in some other words, asking the universe to provide.  I don't know about the latter, but I have heard that studies show that those who pray do attain more of what they want in life than those who do not pray.  Putting that energy out there into the universe ... darn it if doesn't seem to work! 

In regards to love ... well ... you have to love yourself enough in order to place yourself in line with the universe such that you give yourself a chance at your dreams.  You have to do some of the right things.  But in my case, when it looked like I wasn't going to get into school, you need love from others who are willing to give it.  I found care, love and support from all sorts of corners.  I think you find this kind of response, in part because those who give it to you, know that you are the kind of person who would give it back to them should they need the same kind of tender loving care.  I had all sorts of encouragment that I should reapply in the following year ... that lots of people get in on their second try.  I even found two people who had had that happen to them and they shared those stories with me.  Astounding. 

Look.  I know this human kindness stuff is airy ... fluffy ... especially when you're in the waiting place ... waiting for your life to get a reboot.  I know saying be persistent, have hope and share love doesn't seem like much.  But we do not live in a linear world.  You can do all the right things and fail (even though everyone would tell you you should have succeeded) and sometimes you can do all the wrong things and succeed in spite of yourself (even when everyone would tell you you are so lucky because you didn't do the right things to enable success).  Life, like some other gooey substance we all know well and fall in at times ... well life and that gooey substance ... it happens ... you know!  Do the right things, trust and hope that the universe will bring you what's right for you (even if you don't know it's right for you in the moment) and love yourself and others in the process. 

You will get there.  As Norman Vincent Peale said in his Book The Power of Positive Thinking (and I paraphrase here) you make lemonaid from lemons and know that the longer the reward is withheld from you, the greater it will be when it arrives.  I must say that feels true to me right now.

Cheers.  And be kind to one another (and yourself) out there, eh?

Owen

In the meantime: Go Marauders!