by Russ Harris
But what if someone else did the ‘bad stuff’? Well, we could respond in many different ways, depending on the specifics of the situation and the outcomes we are looking for. We might choose to take decisive action to ensure, as best we can, that something like this doesn’t happen again: to take that person to court, or lodge a complaint against them, or cut off all contact with them. Or we might choose to learn new skills that equip us better for dealing with such people in the future; this could include anything from self-defence classes, to assertiveness and communication skills, to attending a course on ‘dealing with difficult people’. Or we might choose simply to ‘put it behind us’ and focus on rebuilding our life, here and now.
Forgiveness, then, consists of these three steps: hold yourself kindly, drop the anchor, and take a stand. And the beautiful thing about it is . . . it’s never too late.
Chapter 19
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE
I never would have believed it possible — not in a million years. My dad was a fairly typical guy for his generation. He looked after his kids in the traditional ways: he worked hard to pay the bills and ensured that his six children all had food and clothes, a roof over their head and a good education. He was very kind and loving in his own way. And like most men of his generation (and many men of my own), he was terrified of intimacy. And by intimacy, I don’t mean having sex; I mean emotional and psychological intimacy.
To be emotionally and psychologically intimate with another human requires two things:
• You need to open up and be real; to ‘let the other person in’; to share your true thoughts and feelings instead of hiding them away.
• You need to create a space for the other person to do likewise; to be warm, open and accepting enough that they too can be real and open with you.
My dad never wanted to talk about anything deeply personal. He liked to make intellectual small talk: to exchange facts, figures and ideas; to discuss movies and books and science. This was all well and good — we had plenty of enjoyable conversations — but it meant that I never got to know him very well. I never got to know about the feelings he struggled with, his hopes and dreams, his setbacks and failures, his most important life experiences and what he learned from them. I never got to know what made him frightened or angry or insecure or sad or guilty. I knew virtually nothing of his interior world.
At the age of seventy-eight he developed lung cancer, but he didn’t tell me. So, knowing nothing of his diagnosis, I went on a six-week trip overseas. Before I left, my dad had a full head of thick white hair, but when I got back, he was totally bald. He didn’t tell me that all his hair had fallen out due to the chemotherapy he’d been having. Instead, he told me he’d shaved off his hair because it was fashionable and he thought it made him look younger. And I believed him.
Of course, as he got sicker and frailer, the true story emerged. But even then, he didn’t want to talk about his cancer, or the treatment, or his fears. And every time I tried to talk about it, he changed the subject or went quiet.
Not knowing how long he would live, I tried to tell him what he meant to me as a father: how much I loved him, the role he had played in my life, the ways he had inspired me, the most useful things he had taught me and the fondest memories I had of him. But he was so uncomfortable with such conversations, especially as my eyes would usually brim with tears, that he would end them almost as soon as they started.
Miraculously, he recovered from the cancer. I hoped this brush with death would help him to open up a little, but I was disappointed. He remained as closed off as he’d always been, if not more so.
Three years later, at the age of eighty-one, he had a heart attack. He had major blockages in several coronary arteries and he required open-heart surgery. The operation carried a significant risk of mortality. Talking to him shortly before the operation, I tried once again to share with him what he meant to me as a father. As usual, tears welled up in my eyes — tears of both love and sadness — and he instantly closed off. He turned away and said, in a stern voice, ‘Hush now. And wipe away those tears.’
Dad survived the operation, but it knocked him around. He had one complication after another and he spent most of the next year in hospital. Towards the end of that year, he became increasingly weak and more and more demoralised. And yet, he still would not allow me to talk to him on an intimate level. Eventually, he decided he had had enough of life and chose to stop all his medication. Being a doctor himself, he knew exactly what this meant: effectively he was killing himself. Once medication ceased, he knew full well he would have only a few days to live. And even knowing this, he still refused to let me tell him how much I loved him and what he meant to me.
In the last hours of his life, Dad started hallucinating. But in between the hallucinations, he had lucid periods, where for several minutes at a time he would be fully conscious, mentally alert and in touch with reality. During one of these periods, I tried one last time to tell him what he meant to me and how much I loved him. I was a blubbering mess: tears streaming down my face and snot bubbling out of my nose. And to my utter amazement, Dad turned and looked deep into my eyes. His face lit up with a radiant smile, full of kindness and compassion, and he took my hands in his and he listened intently to everything I had to say, never once turning away or interrupting. After I had finished sobbing and blowing my nose and telling him everything I’d been wanting to tell him for years, he said, in a voice full of tenderness and love, ‘Thank you.’ And then he added, ‘I love you, too.’
***
I tell this story to make two key points: both of them vital to cover before we end this section. The first is that small changes can have a profound impact. My dad did not transform his personality; all he did was make one small change: he made the effort to stay present and open. And even though the whole episode was over within a few minutes, that one small change gave rise to a beautiful and loving experience that I’ll remember fondly until the day I die.
Our society bombards us with the notion that if we wish to find lasting fulfilment, we have to dramatically overhaul our life, or radically transform our personality, or fundamentally alter the way we think (or even do all three!). But the problem is, when we buy into these notions, it doesn’t usually help us; commonly, all that happens is we end up placing enormous pressure on ourselves. We push ourselves harder and harder to be different and ‘better’ than what we are — and we beat ourselves up for not meeting our own expectations. Sadly, rather than raising us up, this just brings us down.
So why not lighten the load? Why not take the pressure off ourselves? Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was a rich and meaningful life. Why not relax a little? Take baby steps. Go slow. And remember the moral of Aesop’s much-loved tale of The Crow and the Pitcher: ‘Little by little does the trick.’
Trying to make huge changes in a short space of time is almost always a recipe for failure. Occasionally we might manage it, but far more commonly we don’t. However, small changes, over time, can make an enormous difference. To quote Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
The second important point of this story is that it’s never too late to start making these little changes. Of course, your mind may not agree with that. The human mind is a bit like a ‘reason-giving machine’: it is brilliant at coming up with all sorts of reasons for why we can’t change, shouldn’t change, or shouldn’t have to change, and one of its favourites is this: ‘It’s too late! I can’t change now. That’s the way I am. That’s the way I’ve always been.’ But we don’t have to buy into such thoughts. Instead of seeing ourselves as ‘carved in stone’, we can acknowledge that we have a never-ending capacity to learn and grow and act and think differently. All we need to do is tune in to our hearts and ask ourselves: ‘What one tiny change could I make? What one tiny change in what I say or what I do or how I think, would take me closer to being the person
I want to be?’
I wish my dad had made his change a bit earlier, instead of waiting until he was on his deathbed. But I am so grateful for his precious parting gift: he opened up, stayed present, and allowed me to share my true feelings with him. And he did this willingly. It is such a beautiful memory: both heart-warming and heart-rending at the same time. And it’s a powerful reminder that as long as we’re still breathing, it’s never too late to change.
PART 5
FIND THE TREASURE
Chapter 20
IT’S A PRIVILEGE
I once heard a comedian say this as a put-down to a noisy heckler: ‘One hundred million sperm — and you had to be the one that got through!’ When you think about it in these terms, that it only takes one in a hundred million sperm to fertilise an egg, you realise you are pretty lucky to be alive. When you think about it even more broadly, and consider the chain of events that had to take place in order for you to be here — how your mother had to meet your father, and how their mothers and fathers had to meet each other, and so on, backwards to the dawn of life — it seems almost miraculous that you exist at all. In other words, you are privileged to be alive.
A ‘privilege’ means an advantage granted to a particular person or group. And an advantage is a condition or circum -stance that puts us in a favourable position, or provides us with a valuable opportunity. You are one of a particular group that scientists refer to as Homo sapiens, and the fact that you are alive when so many members of your species are dead, puts you in a favourable position. It gives you a valuable opportunity to connect, care and contribute; to love and learn and grow. To treat life as a privilege means to seize that opportunity; to appreciate it, embrace it and savour it.
This is, of course, easy to say, but how do we actually do it? Well, if you’ve been applying the principles in this book, you’re already well on the way. For just as wood and fire combine to give heat, purpose and presence combine to create a sense of privilege.
Let’s come back to the idea that life is like a stage show, and on that stage are all your thoughts and feelings, and everything that you can see, hear, touch, taste and smell. The ‘reality gap’ is only one part of that stage show. However, when the whole stage goes black — except for one big spotlight on the reality gap — then it seems as if there is nothing to life but our pain. (This is what happens when we fuse with the ‘not good enough’ story.)
So what if we bring up the lights on the rest of the show? What if we illuminate every aspect? What if we notice both the reality gap and all the life around that gap? (For no matter how large the gap, our life is larger.) What if, from that space of expansive awareness, we notice the ways in which life is not lacking; we notice the aspects that do meet our needs and desires? And what if we should discover something very precious? What if we should find some hidden treasure — something that gives us a sense of fulfilment even in the midst of our great pain?
Of course, your mind may say, ‘While I have this problem/loss to deal with, nothing else matters’ or ‘Without X, Y, or Z my life is empty/meaningless’ or ‘I don’t care about anything else’. But if you get hooked by these thoughts, you will get lost in the smog: you will stumble around, scarcely able to breathe. If you want some relief from this smog, you’ll need to get present: unhook from those thoughts, cultivate an expansive aware ness and notice the whole of your life, not just the ‘bad’ bits.
What might happen to your life if you were to notice all those things that most of us take for granted? And more than just notice them: appreciate them, savour them and treasure them? Remember B.F. Skinner, treasuring his last mouthful of water? What if you were in this moment to treasure your breathing, or your eyesight, or your hearing, or the use of your arms and legs? What if you were to treasure your next encounter with friends, family or neighbours? Have you ever been for a walk and celebrated the beauty around you? Have you ever breathed in the air and rejoiced in its freshness? Have you ever relished the warmth of an open fire or a comfortable bed? Have you ever savoured a home-cooked meal, delighted in freshly baked bread, or ‘loved every minute’ of a long hot shower? Have you ever found joy in a hug, or a kiss, or a book, or a movie, or a sunset, or a flower, or a child, or a pet?
At this point, your mind might be saying, ‘Yeah, Russ, that’s all very well, but what about those people who are stuck in truly horrific circumstances? Surely this isn’t relevant to them?’ My answer is: first things first. When reality slaps us in the face, first we need to drop anchor and hold ourselves kindly. Next we need to take a stand: if we can’t or won’t leave, then we change what can be changed, accept what can’t be changed, and live by our values. If we’ve done all that and the situation remains horrific then, yes, it’ll likely be very hard to find anything to appreciate, savour or treasure. But it won’t be impossible.
For example, in his autobiography Long Walk To Freedom, Nelson Mandela describes how during his many years in prison on Robben Island, he was able to savour his early morning marches to the quarry; to appreciate the fresh sea breeze and the beautiful wildlife. Or take the case of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp for the last year of the Second World War. In his moving book about that experience, If This is a Man, Levi describes how he endured backbreaking labour, day in day out, in the freezing Polish winter, wearing only the thinnest of clothes. But when the first days of spring appeared, he was able to truly savour the warmth of the sun. Finally, consider Victor Frankl, another Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. In his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, he reveals how even in the midst of all that horror, he was still able to treasure the sweet memories of his wife.
Notice I’m not suggesting we try to distract ourselves or pretend the reality gap isn’t there. I’m not saying we should look at all the other parts of the stage show and ignore the bits we don’t like. I’m not proposing that we try to think positively and tell ourselves that this is all for the best. (You can try these approaches if you like, but they don’t usually work very well — at least, not in the long term.) What I am suggesting is simply this: let’s bring up the lights on the whole stage show. Let’s see the gap clearly and what’s around it and also appreciate the privilege of seeing the show. And then let’s find something in the show that we can treasure.
Of course, like many of the things in this book, this is much easier said than done. Why? Because the default setting of the human mind is to focus on what we don’t have; on what’s not good enough; on what needs to be fixed, solved or changed, before we can appreciate life. And although we were sometimes told as children to ‘smell the roses’ and ‘count our blessings’, we grew up in a culture that far preferred to focus on the negative, painful and problematic. (If you’re in any doubt about that, just open any newspaper and notice what percentage of stories are predominantly negative, painful and problematic.)
This means that when someone suggests we appreciate what we have, our minds may very well be cynical. So if your mind is now protesting, please treat it as if it’s a loud voice in the far corner of a café: let it have its say, but don’t get caught up in it, or sucked into any kind of argument. And instead let’s consider: how can we appreciate what we have?
Finding Appreciation
It’s actually quite simple to develop appreciation for the things we have. All we need to do is pay attention. But we don’t just do this in any old way we want. We pay attention in a particular way: with openness and curiosity. Let’s try it now. As you read this sentence, notice how your eyes are scanning the page; notice how they move from word to word without any conscious effort on your part; how they go at just the right speed for you to take in the information.
Now imagine how difficult life would be if you lost your eyesight. How much would you miss out on? Imagine if you could no longer read books, or watch movies, or discern the facial expressions of your loved ones, or check out your reflection in a mirror, or watch a sunset, or drive a car.
When you reach the
end of this paragraph, stop reading for a few seconds, look around and notice — and I mean really notice — five things you can see. Linger on each item for several seconds, noticing its shape, colour and texture, as if you are a curious child who has never seen anything like it. Notice any patterns or markings on the surface of these objects. Notice how the light reflects off them, or the shadows they cast. Notice their contours, outlines and whether they are moving or still. Be open to the experience to discover something new, even if your mind insists it will be boring.
Then once you have finished, take a moment to consider just how much your eyes add to your life; consider what the gift of vision affords you. What would life be like if you were blind? How much would you miss out on?
***
This brief exercise links together all the three P’s: presence, purpose and privilege. As we pay attention, with openness and curiosity, we get present. Then we infuse this relationship with purpose: we connect with our eyes; we care about them; and we reflect on how they contribute to our lives and, in turn, we contribute our gratitude. And as we truly appreciate what eyesight gives us — as we treasure the very miracle of vision itself — then in that moment, we get a sense of privilege.