“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” ~ Albert Einstein

I have a confession to make… I have taken to ducking in and out of the Whole Foods across the street from the office, scurrying in and out with my eyes lowered, even going so far as to walk all the way around the block, simply to avoid the army of people asking for money outside the doors.

They have clearly identified the people the store attracts as soft touches and therefore prime targets.  There has not been a single visit in months where at least one person didn’t ask me for a handout.

It’s not that I’m not charitable; I give to any number of organizations that support causes that I feel are important and meaningful, and which I believe make the world a better place for all.  I will almost always work out a deal for someone who needs my services but can’t pay full price, and I give away sessions to charitable organizations as auction items for benefits.  My friends are frequently the beneficiaries of not only my work but also of my time – babysitting, editing, errands, etc.  I give change in the grocery store to people who turn up short.

And for the most part, I do this all pretty joyfully.

But somehow all the giving I do doesn’t assuage the guilt I feel when I walk past an outstretched hand or rattling cup… but giving doesn’t feel good, either.

“Beggars should be abolished entirely!” said Nietzsche.  “Verily, it is annoying to give to them and it is annoying not to give to them.”

The first year I lived in Chicago, I gave to anyone who asked.  I took everyone’s story at face value and gave what I had to give… but then I started to learn things…

I listened to two men in a bus shelter wearing far nicer shoes than mine talk about what a good “scam” (their word, not mine) selling Streetwise was.

A friend shared that he had given faithfully to a man outside the restaurant at which he worked whose house had burned down.  Until the guy let it slip that he was pulling down upwards of $250 per night, five days a week, sitting where he was.  My friend did the math, realized he himself was making significantly less money, and that was the end of that.

I was subjected over and over again to the rehearsed rants by men who held entire EL cars captive, asking to be taken care of.

I discovered that one of the paraplegics sitting on the local corner would, at the end of his “shift,” wheel himself around the corner where someone in a luxury van would pick him up.

William Temple, Sr. said, “Good intentions are at least, the seed of good actions; and every one ought to sow them, and leave it to the soil and the seasons whether He or any other gather they fruit.”

I appreciate the thought – I like the idea that, as long as I give my money with good intentions, that the intention of the receiver isn’t my concern.

But that doesn’t stop me from feeling like I had “Suckah” written on my forehead that first year.

For a while, I assuaged my need to give directly by always giving to street artists.  Sing in the el tunnel… paint yourself silver and stand on Michigan Ave. dancing like a robot… drum on plastic buckets… I didn’t care.  I liked that there was at least some exchange of energy happening.

But lately that doesn’t feel like enough.  With the economy being what it is; I know I am one of the fortunate ones.  I love what I do, and I get to do it amongst people who I consider family in the very best sense of the word.  I get paid to do something that makes me feel whole and complete and like I am making the world a better place, one person at a time.

Not everyone is so lucky.

And it’s cold outside.

So, I’d like to put something directly into the hands of someone who really needs it; someone in my neighborhood, in my community who can benefit from what I can afford to give…

But I’d like not to feel like I’m being played in the process.

“We can all be conned but at what point do we realize that we’re being conned and to what point do we allow ourselves to be conned?” ~ Guy Ritchie

“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.” ~ Samuel Johnson

I was at home one day when my best friend from Grad school called me.

“I’m having the most FANTASTIC day!” she said to me.

I got excited; I imagined all kinds of fabulous things that might have come into her world.  New job, reconnection with an old friend, meeting a fascinating someone new…

“Really?!  What’s going on?”

“My car broke down in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge,” she answered.

“WHAT???” was my automatic reply. “How is that fantastic??”

“Oh,” she said, “it’s WONDERFUL.  They come along in a truck with a board tied to the front, and they push your car off to the side, out of traffic.  THEN, you get to stand in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge and look at the world!”

“Ok,” I said, beginning to catch on.

“How often do you get to stand in the MIDDLE of the Golden Gate Bridge??  It’s FANTASTIC!!!!!”

This is my friend Jessica, who is one of the brightest, funniest, most grounded humans I know.  When she tells you something is FANTASTIC, she means it…

Jessica is my role model for living in the moment – she not only manages to stay present to the here and now, but with hedonistic pleasure, she latches on to what joy there is to be found and runs with it.

How many of us can say the same?

Inevitably, life will not go the way we plan.  The truth is that we can make all the plans we want, but the future is still unknown to us.  How we react to the moment depends entirely on our ability to let go of how we thought things would be and embrace what IS.

Not every situation gives us as clear-cut a benefit as being able to look out over San Francisco Bay from 220 feet above…

But there is almost always wisdom to be gleaned, and pleasure to be found if we are able to surrender the shoulds, and the coulds, and the woulds to the Now.

FANTASTIC indeed!

“Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I’ll tell you their philosophy of life.” ~ Dale Carnegie

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political & moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression & violence without resorting to oppression & violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression & retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

So, I’m giving myself an ENORMOUS “duh” this Martin Luther King Day…

As amazing as this may sound, somehow or another, I never quite got that King’s message was one of Radical Love.

See, despite knowing that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a minister, I somehow managed to miss that his was a spiritual mission.  I admit that, if I thought about it at all, I attributed the religious component of his work to the language of the African American culture of the time.

I have read, watched, and listened to his speeches, and yet I managed to miss that “love your neighbor as yourself” was the guiding principle behind his commitment to non-violence.

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Imagine if, in the face of others’ anger, confusion, disappointment, and hurt, we were able to move beyond our own fears and respond to their’s from a place centered in love… love for their humanity, love for our own, love for the possibilities between us…

If we take it one step further, if each and every one of us made a commitment to non violence in all our actions – if every individual and business adopted the motto of the medical profession, “first, do no harm,” what radical changes would we have to make?

Wouldn’t we stop polluting the earth in order to make a quick buck?  Wouldn’t there be equal pay for equal work?  Wouldn’t products be priced fairly?  Wouldn’t we assure that every person had access to top medical care, good food, clean water, that every child had an opportunity for equal education?  Wouldn’t we make sure that every person was treated fairly?

Isn’t this the aim of the Civil Rights movement – then AND now??

And it all starts in Love.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.” ~ Virginia Woolf

Our women’s group met for the first time tonight – an auspicious beginning that promises growth, understanding, support, exploration…

Women of all ages expressed a yearning for community, for a safe space in which to push boundaries, to discover and recover all that it means to be woman.

Inevitably the question arose, “What does it mean to be female?”

The obvious answers came up – softness, compassion, nurturing, loving, strength.

But these qualities aren’t the sole domain of women… can the definition of femaleness be as simple as the ability to bear children?  Does that then take away from the femininity of women who cannot or choose not to become mothers?  It certainly doesn’t feel like the right answer…

In the end, I had to say that I didn’t know what it means to be female – or at least that I have no words for it.

I am clear that I am Woman; even as a little kid, I never wanted to be a boy… I don’t even particularly enjoy the idea of being reincarnated as a guy – kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies – that’s how strongly I identify with being female.

And yet, I find the concept of my own gender intangible…

Imagine how confusing it must be if you are very clear in your own head that you are one sex, while not only the world, but your own physical body tell you you are another…

Frankly, if I woke up tomorrow with a penis, I would be a VERY unhappy woman…

But I’d still be a woman, ‘cause I’d still be me and I’m female…

(Easy to tie yourself up in knots trying to think your way through this.)

If the simple expression of gender and sexual identity is so intangible, I have to wonder how we ever got the idea that it was so black and white… did we need so badly for things to fit in nice neat packages that we ignored our own experience?

Or were we never brave enough to question it?

And what would it mean if we did?

“Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active, masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of heart, mind and spirit–qualities which are actually neither masculine nor feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected. It is growth along these lines that will make us whole, and will enable the individual to become world to himself.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” ~ Thomas Merton

“The fewer clear facts you have in support of an opinion, the stronger your emotional attachment to that opinion.” ~ Anonymous

Up until now, I’ve avoided talking about dating– actually, I’m not really going to talk about it now; it’s just that there may be no better way to illustrate the impact our internal pictures have on our outer world experience…

So bear with me here!

Once upon a time, I spent some time with a guy who kinda blew the doors off the limited possibilities I held for myself about relationship.

He was a bohemian of the business world; for him, numbers were like clay – something to build great works of art from.  A seeker, he climbed mountains, jet-setted all over the globe, read constantly.  He was charismatic, charming, humble, and he had an accent to die for.

Our first date was epic… coffee in the afternoon turned into dinner and drinks and closing the restaurant – we talked nonstop for hours.  At some point, he told me that, after all the years he’d spent rootless, he was finally ready to settle down with a strong, smart woman and have a family.

I was gone – I felt like Cinderella meeting the prince.  I imagined the stories we would tell our children.  I glowed.

But then there was the business that took him out of town and around the world.  Periodically, I got texts and emails from amazing places, telling me he was thinking of me, missing me.  And I went on with my life, all the while holding safe space for him to come home to, doing my part to help him feel rooted in something that had more meaning than the endless wining and dining of investors that were part of his job.

Romantically, I saw myself as one of those old New England sailor’s wives, walking the widow’s walk and holding the family together until the Captain returned safely home.

Now, you, reading this from the outside, know exactly where this is going.  Is there really any doubt?  It’s so very obvious, isn’t it?

But I was attached to the picture of him that I’d formed on that first date.  I took all the perfect things he’d said to me, and I held them before me like a talisman.  Like a woman with a map through the desert, I ignored all the other signs and kept walking towards my Mecca.

So when the whole house of cards fell – which you know it did – I felt angry, hurt, ashamed, confused…

What did it mean if a man like him could reject me? How could he do this to me?

But it wasn’t “him” doing it to me- not the man that I’d fallen for, because that man didn’t exist.  “He” was a mirage, a picture in my head that I attached to this particular name, in this particular body… but it had nothing to do with the man he actually was… a man I wouldn’t have wanted…

All the pain I experienced throughout the whole “relationship” was a product of the disconnect between my internal picture and his behavior…

I couldn’t reconcile his actions with the man I thought him to be, and because I didn’t want to lose my Prince Charming, I chose (yup, chose) to believe that there was something wrong with me instead…

Pictures are POWERFUL, and if we don’t spend time working out which ones we’re holding, we are powerless against them and we suffer needlessly.

No more suffering!

“Realizing that our actions, feelings and behavior are the result of our own images and beliefs gives us the level that psychology has always needed for changing personality.” ~ Maxwell Maltz