“Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.” (Christopher Reeve)
I remember as a kid the excitement and the sense of danger of going down to the deep end of the local swimming pool. Even though it was only 18 feet deep at the deep end it
seemed at the time to be like the ocean. After all, I could no longer touch the bottom with my feet and it was either swim or sink. The ocean is ever scarier; however, the first and only time that I have ever gone scuba diving, I discovered what wonderful things there are to see in the ocean, once you get out of the shallows of the shoreline. Even only 20-30 feet down there is much more to see and many more fish than in the shallows of the shoreline.
Life is a l
ot like that. There is safety and comfort to be found in staying in the shallow end of life, where your feet are always able to touch the bottom. But, if you will just venture out into the ocean of life a bit, you will find it to be a whole lot more interesting, if not a little terrifying every now and them. Out of the terror and the increased interest in things and people, comes the reward of increased knowledge and awareness of the differences and beauty that is just a bit further out – in the deep end of life. Just like at the pool, you have to work a little harder to stay afloat and there is a tendency to panic from time to time when you realized that you can no longer find the safety of the bottom of the pool; but, also, just like swimming out in the ocean, there is so much more to see and experience and learn from.
We have a euphemistic term for this; it’s called getting out of one’s comfort zone. Our comfort zone is that shallow end that is a little warmer than the deep end and in which we can always securely feel the bottom and even stand up if necessary. When we were real little we may have even worn those “water wings” on our arms to make sure that we could stray afloat. We quickly outgrow those devices, but many of us never really outgrow the need to feel the bottom of the pool – to stay in the shallow end of life.
For many the safety of life’s routines in the shallow end eventually become dull and boring and so they venture out into the deep in (the ocean) of life. That involves interacting with people that we normally don’t interact with and doing things that we
normally don’t do. The biggest challenge is really overcoming our own imagined fears about what could happen and just letting go long enough for the interesting things in life to happen. Sometimes that means meeting and interacting with new people, people who are different from us and our usual friends. Those may be people of different colors or different sexual orientations or even different religious backgrounds. It could be someone from a foreign land or just from a different neighborhood or even a different city or state. Many times it will involve people from different socio-economic backgrounds or different levels of education. The important thing is that it involves people who likely see things from a different perspective than our own. We will be in a different end of the pool, one in which our feet may not be able to touch the bottom.
Such interactions, out of your normal comfort zone, might leave you a little breathless or maybe a little frightened, but they seldom could be classified as boring. In fact, you may find yourself longing for another dose of that excitement and the little edge of fear, because it awakens things in you that may have become dormant due to the comfort of living too long in the shallow end. Some who begin to venture out into the ocean of life describe it as a natural high – a combination of the adrenaline rush of trying something new and the satisfaction of having been successful at it.
There is an old saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I think it also makes you more interesting to yourself and to other, too. So, get out of your comfort zone. See what wonderful things and people are out there in the deep end. Try new things. If you fail, learn from those failures and try again. Meet new people and not just people who look exactly like you. Learn from them. Appreciate them and their cultures and their
points of view. Life is too short to spend your entire time here in the shallow end. So, venture out into the ocean – the deep end – of life.
I’ll see you out in the ocean…
Posted by Norm Werner 
order to avoid being run over by change, one must embrace change. One cannot stop the flow of change, but like a surfer riding a wave, one can get on top of change and enjoy the ride. One might even be able to effect the changes that are in motion so that they take you in a direction that you want to go, rather than just sweeping you along to some unknown destination
and defeatist attitude take over your life. Maintaining a positive attitude is key. Brian Tracy pout it well when he said – “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”
submit, we need faith as our rudder to sail against the winds of change and the ups and downs that come with change. Sailors also study the stars and their maps to guide them, just as we can study the bible for guidance in our lives.
response to change based upon a positive attitude as your centerboard and your faith as your rudder will allow you master change and not let it get the upper hand on you. You will control your direction and your destiny, no matter which way the winds of change are blowing. Perhaps Sherrie Eldridge put it best when she said – “The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude”
imagined) rather than from overt actions or words. In any case the advice that Nicks give is not to let those wounds fester, not to neglect them; rather you should deal with them.
must accept that, for them anyway, this is reality as far as you are concerned. If you begin by stopping to analyze what that reality is in their eyes, you might discover the grain of truth that is at the core of their perception of you. Maybe they say, “I don’t like being around him/her, because he/she is always in a bad (down) mood and I don’t want him/her to bring mine down, too.” Wow, you are perceived as Debbie Downer, the moody person who isn’t much fun to be around. How did that happen?
others, in hopes that they will empathize with you. Once the initial pleasantries are exchanged, you may be able to judge whether this person has enough interest in you or is a close enough friend to share a wound or two and to seek advice from. The BFF’s in your life may be the only ones that you meet to whom you should ever expose your wounds. Do that too often with them and even BFFs will start to avoid you.
ted here before about dealing with problems and putting them behind you. That is the best way to handle your wounds, too. First, acknowledge that something that you did or that someone else did is bothering you – it is an open wound. Then determine if there is anything that you or anyone else might do that would correct, mitigate or make right what has happened or what was said. If it was you who said something that hurt someone else, and now that thoughtless action has bounced back to wound you; then you know who can fix that. Apologizing and saying that you are sorry to the person impacted by your actions will have a salving effect on them and on you. You may cure two wounds at once.
that you took that you now regret; you need to give yourself some slack and try to turn this into a learning experience. Beating yourself up is never the best way to deal with a failure or a mistake. Stop an analyze what your thought process was going into the event and which of the assumptions that you might have made, or which “facts” that you were relying on, might have been wrong and steered you in the wrong direction. Learn from it.
move on. Even the gravest of perceived slights or actions by someone else against you must be forgiven and you certainly must be able to forgive yourself, if you are to get out of self-pity mode and get back to living.
perpetrators are about people with a strong foundation of belief in God in their lives. As part of their healing process, they have taken their wounds to God and He has healed them. They are able to say “I forgive you” to the person how harmed them because they are secure in the belief that God has forgiven them all of their sins, no matter how small or large.
than forced upon us. Sometimes we become overly cautious, because we let the fear of what could happen prevent us from even trying new things or things that we have dreamed about doing. One can only hope that our base of wisdom, that we’ve built up over a lifetime, serves to protect us by giving us a better ability to plan to avoid the risks involved, rather than to let them stop us. That’s why I like that recent ad with the older guy going down the zip line, having taken the necessary precautions to make sure that he doesn’t fall out, rather than not doing it at all based upon fear or the trepidation of others.
really a call to continue to feel useful and needed. You can find fulfillment for that urge by serving others and giving back to your community. You may well find that the simple “Thank you” that you’ll get from the elderly shut in that you just delivered a meal to feels more rewarding that all of the plaques and awards that you may have garnered over the business career that you had.
accept them for who they are without prejudice. As a test, imagine that two girls walk into a room where you are. One looks “normal” and the other is sporting a nose ring and purple lips. What is your immediate reaction to them? Did you jump to a conclusion (a judgement) right away about the girl with the nose ring? I wonder what she thought about me if she saw an old dude standing there gawking at her.
precipitated the poor decision that led to that act. Was it caused by desperate hunger or maybe even overwhelming fear? Was it caused by the need to feed and addiction and what was the root cause of that addition? Is the behavior driven by a condition or illness that we just don’t understand? After all, how does one put oneself into the shoes of a person on the autism spectrum and see things as they see them?
making those snap judgments that many do, just based upon appearance or mannerisms. It takes a discipline that I have yet to master to prevent that from happening and to be able to think and accept, before rushing to judgement. I’m still working on that.
same time, I read week after week about doctors and other health care “professionals” being prosecuted for fraud that saps millions from the healthcare system and about drug costs that have gone through the roof due to a broken healthcare payments system.
Bible and the teachings of Jesus; yet they arrive at dramatically different perspectives on life and in the decisions that they make. It seems to me that at its core the two points of view can be expressed as “leave me alone” and “let me help you”. At the one extreme is anarchy and at the other socialism. Of course, neither will ever be achieved, but those end goals seem to drive the participants’ behavior.
selfless effort to help others in need. There are, however, those who do what appears to be volunteer work to help others but who have ulterior motives. Many of these people are in it to be seen, to be considered to be kind and helpful by others; presumably others whom they think it is important to impress.
sweaty like everyone else on the site. Most important people show up for things like a ground breaking ceremony with suit and tie on and stand there with their silver shovel for the photo op and then are never seen again. Do you know people like that?
around Calcutta with a T-shirt like that on, nor will you ever see them on the thousands of volunteers who toil year around behind the scenes as food servers at shelters or councilors at safe houses.
tendency to wallow in self-pity or to seek to blame others for our failures or the calamities that may befall us. Some turn to drugs or alcohol in tough times. Because we go there, rather than heading Lady Churchill’s advice we descend into depression or live an unhappy life, convinced that somehow life is being unfair to us.
throws at us can become so overwhelming that we finally admit to ourselves that we can’t handle them and turn back to the one power in the universe that can handle anything – God. At the point at which we surrender to the will of God, rather than continue our foolish fight against the impossible or inevitable, we are given the power to see what went right and find happiness by making the best of things as they are. You really don’t have to understand what God’s plan for you is; you just need to accept that He has one and that, in the end, everything will be alright. You can give up your anger, your pain and your frustrations with what has happened and say, “Thy will be done.” The immediate release that you will feel will allow you to re-focus on what has gone right in your life and what (and who) is really important.
Heaton – “I have to keep reminding myself: If you give your life to God, he doesn’t promise you happiness and that everything will go well. But he does promise you peace. You can have peace and joy, even in bad circumstances.” How comforting is the thought of being at peace even in the face of adversity.
Objects can be interesting because of the stories or history that might be behind them. IF you go to our local Milford Historical Museum you can see lots of things from the past in the Milford area, stating with a replica of the interior of a typical log cabin that the first settlers built. You come away amazed at how resourceful they were, even though they had none of our modern conveniences. Believe it or not l, they were able to get by without smart phones or TV’s.
So, if you are looking for something interesting to do, meet someone new and start paying attention to the story of their life. You will probably get the chance to share your life with them, too; because they will find your life interesting, too (even if you thought it was boring). What makes meeting and talking with other people so interesting is that they have done things and gone to places and had experiences that we haven’t, so they provide new knowledge about things that we may not have even thought about. You would be surprised at the things you can learn from someone whom you may have always seen as a boring, normal person – maybe a quiet and reclusive neighbor or the timid wallflower who never seemed to dance with anyone or perhaps the great uncle that you had never met.
with the nice little lady at the library desk her vacation trips to the Amazon jungles and her encounter with tribes of natives who are still living as they did centuries ago. Who are these people? They are the people that you past every day without paying any attention to them.
relax as it normally would be if you weren’t trying to put a look on it and then look in the mirror or have someone take you picture. You may be unpleasantly surprised that your “at rest” face looks so unfriendly. I always thought that Representative and House Speaker John Boehner looked angry all the time; although, if you Goggle him you’ll see many pictures of him smiling. His “at rest” face was not a smile. How about yours?
A smirk is not a smile and may be on our faces for all of the wrong reasons; yet even a smirk can look better on your face than a frown.
“A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.” – Tom Wilson
We all amass a book of wisdom over our lives, however, the books of wisdom for different people don’t have the same chapters nor do they read the same. I can’t think of a better first chapter for our book of wisdom than that suggested by Jefferson. The honesty that he was referring to must include being honest with yourself first and then you can be honest with all others in your life.
honest with either ourselves or others. I’m not sure of the wisdom of that course of action. Those who are not honest with themselves and others often weave webs of intrigue and lies that eventually they become caught up in themselves. Being honest and transparent in the things that your do and the decisions that you make means that you don’t have to try to remember all of the lies and deceptions that you may have engaged in with others.
“beautiful people”; however, everyone can be a beautiful person and that starts with them accepting themselves and not trying to be something that they aren’t. You will often hear someone referred to as being “genuine” and that is undoubtedly an honest person. Such a person may admire another person, but they don’t try to be that other person, because they are comfortable with who they are.
going in life? What’s holding you back from making those changes? Be honest with yourself and it will be easier for you to be honest with those around you. What a wise thing to do. You’ve added a new chapter to your book of wisdom.
NormsMilfordBlog 