Category: Perspective

What Is Happily Ever After?

The glass slipper fits perfectly. The prince takes Cinderella’s hand. The castle doors swing open, and as the camera pans out over the kingdom, the narrator’s voice declares, “And they lived happily ever after.”

The end.

What comes next? 

Did Cinderella and her prince travel the world together? Did they have children who drove them to the brink of exhaustion? Did she struggle to adjust to palace life? Did they face illness, loss, or financial strain? How did they support each other as they learned to build their life together?

“Happily ever after” is a blank canvas. It conjures a series of images in our head. Successes we dream of, milestones we hope to reach, adventures we’re planning, moments of pure joy we can almost taste.

For some, happily ever after is a corner office overlooking the city, business-class flights to international conferences, and coming home to a modern apartment where everything has its place.

For others, it’s Saturday morning pancakes with kids mixing the batter in a cloud of flour dust or teaching their daughter to ride a bike. Quiet evenings on the porch planning their next camping trip.

Still others may crave a life of endless travel, vagabonding from place to place, sampling cuisine from every corner of the world as they go.

There are as many versions of happiness and fulfilment as there are people.

Social media tries to curate our happiness by showing us picture-perfect moments. Engagement photos against stunning backdrops, vacation snapshots from exotic locations (often peering over two perfectly poured wine glasses on a balcony), career announcements celebrating promotions and new ventures.

These snippets of other people’s lives create a happiness catalog. A collection of achievements and experiences that can feel like requirements for a well-lived life.

We may start believing that fulfillment looks like someone else’s Instagram story, someone else’s LinkedIn update, someone else’s holiday letter.

Seeking fulfillment by following someone else’s template is always a fool’s errand.

Sure, be inspired by someone else’s success. Maybe borrow a travel idea, or try something new. But their world operates differently than ours. Their values, circumstances, and dreams belong uniquely to them.

What brings them deep satisfaction might leave us feeling empty. What fills our hearts might seem trivial to them.

True fulfillment can only come from our own perspectives, our own values, and our own definition of what makes us, and those we love, happiest.

Real “happily ever after” is wonderfully messy and beautifully imperfect. It blends all the goals and aspirations we have with all the compromises and adjustments we’ve made along the way.

Goals that seemed essential in our twenties might be irrelevant in our forties. The dreams we never imagined decades ago can suddenly become our life’s new mission.

This evolution reflects an ongoing process of learning who we are and what truly matters to us. Independent of what we thought we would want…or what others told us we should want.

Happily ever after lives in the ongoing appreciation of what we’ve built and who we’ve become. Our story matters because it’s still unfolding and it’s authentically ours. It doesn’t need to resemble the someone else’s highlight reel.

The glass slipper that fits you perfectly will look nothing like Cinderella’s. Maybe it’s a hiking boot, flip-flops, a running shoe, or something very formal, made of fancy leather…or no shoes at all.

You choose.

And that’s exactly as it should be.

Photo by Ella Heineman on Unsplash – because one of my greatest joys is making breakfast for my kids and grandkids on a Saturday morning…a wonderful part of my happily ever after.

The Opportunity to Level Up

Ego may be our biggest barrier to learning.

It’s like having a guy working the door at a nightclub, deciding who or what gets in.

We assume we already know everything, so we stop listening. We nod politely. But inwardly we’ve already dismissed the person speaking. Or the article. Or the correction.

There’s often good reason for our defensiveness. Being wrong about something important can have real consequences. Our ego is trying to protect us from the genuine discomfort and potential costs of being mistaken.

The paradox is that the very thing protecting us from being wrong in the moment often prevents us from being more right in the future.

What if instead of having a bouncer who turns everyone away, we hired a smarter gatekeeper? One who doesn’t just protect us from being wrong, but actually helps us get better at being right?

What if we treat new information, even the stuff that contradicts what we think we know, as an invitation?

An opportunity to level up. To upgrade our understanding. To sharpen our thinking.

What happens when we level up? Our predictions start getting more accurate. Our explanations become clearer and more useful to others. We catch our own mistakes faster…sometimes before they even leave our mouth. We become more curious about the very areas we feel most certain.

The next time someone disagrees with you or presents information that challenges what you believe, pause before your ego’s bouncer slams the door.

Ask yourself, “What if they’re right? Can I learn something new?”

This doesn’t mean accepting everything that comes your way. But you can listen. Examine the ideas. Question them. Test them against what you know.

That’s true intellectual courage.

And it’s the only way to keep growing in a world that never stops changing.

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” – Epictetus

Photo by Vinay Tryambake on Unsplash

I Was Just Wondering…

Are the stars just as bright from above as they are down here?

Do you get to see the ones you love? Your parents, your brothers and sisters, your old neighbors, that one special friend who always made you laugh?

Is there coffee in Heaven? Is it better than your favorite blend on a cold desert morning?

Do you remember everything now? Things once forgotten.

And now that you know, what do you know?

Do you hear us when we talk about you? When we laugh at your stories and try to retell them just right?

Do you miss us, or does love work differently there?

Can you see how much we love you still?

Are you proud of the life we’re trying to live?

Do you see how we carry your lessons forward, quietly passing your wisdom down, one small act at a time.

I wonder if you recognize your love moving through our family in the lives your grandkids and great-grandkids are creating.

And I was just wondering…

When it’s my time, when I finally get to see what you see, will you be waiting for me with open arms, and smiles, and one of your special meals that feels so much like home?

I think so.

But for now, I’ll keep wondering. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Leadership That Lasts Beyond the Finish Line

In high school, I had the good fortune of running cross country under a man named Mr. Smuts. Our coach and my 11th grade AP U.S. History teacher. He was the kind of leader who quietly influenced growth in those around him. 

He didn’t bark commands or demand the spotlight. On race day, while other coaches were shouting themselves hoarse, Mr. Smuts would position himself at the mile markers. Calm, steady, present. As we passed, he’d simply call out our split times. No cheering. No panic. Just numbers.

We didn’t need anything else.

He had trained us so well that those times were all the feedback we needed. We knew what they meant. We knew what he expected. And we knew he believed in each of us (even the slow guys, like me).

When we crossed the finish line, sometimes ahead of the competition, sometimes not, he’d quietly remind us that the real opponent wasn’t the other team. It was the clock. It was ourselves.

That quiet challenge made us better. Not just as runners, but as young men.

Mr. Smuts embodied a rare approach to leadership. Seeing others more than being seen. His confidence in us was contagious. His calm became our calm. His consistency helped us believe that showing up and giving our best effort, day after day, was enough to grow into something exceptional.

For a bunch of teenagers full of energy and bravado, his presence could have been drowned out by flash and high school nonsense. But instead, we listened closely. We trusted deeply. And we ran harder.

His leadership style reminds me of a line from the Tao Te Ching:

“When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’”

That’s exactly how it felt. We crossed those finish lines thinking we had pulled it off on our own. Only because he had quietly laid the foundation beneath our feet.

True leaders create space for others to rise.

The Tao Te Ching calls it wu wei, effortless action. Like a river flowing around rocks instead of smashing into them. Doing the right thing at the right time and then stepping back to let the results take root.

Ronald Reagan once said, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

This could have been written about Mr. Smuts.

He led in a way that called attention to others rather than himself. His approach shaped how we performed, how we grew, and how we learned to lead ourselves. His impact showed itself in the confidence he helped us build and the standard of excellence we still carry with us today.

The next time you find yourself in a leadership role at work, in your family, or on any team, ask yourself:

-Am I trying to be the hero, or trying to build others up?

-How can I lead with quiet influence?

-Can I let go of credit and trust the process I’ve helped shape?

The best leaders don’t stand in front of their people. They stand with them, sometimes just off to the side, calmly calling out split times as the race unfolds.

And when it’s over, they nod to themselves, knowing they’ve done their job.

The rest of the story: Mr. Smuts earned his doctorate in Leadership and became Dr. Smuts not long after my time at Cerritos High School (Class of 1984).  He went on to become the school’s principal and ultimately the school district’s Superintendent of Schools for many years, before retiring in 2012. He continues to enjoy his retirement years.

Dr. Smuts is a leader who inspired (literally) thousands of kids (and adults). 

This video provides a brief glimpse of this truly inspiring and gentle man in 2012 as he prepared to retire. It also highlights my high school campus that looks very much like it did four decades ago.  

The Thing Before the Thing IS the Thing

Somewhere along the way, I’ve noticed a quiet truth.

The thing I was working toward (the goal, the vision, the project, the finish line) always required other steps. Preparation. Research. Practice. Training. A foundation. A warm-up.

While I tried to focus on the thing I wanted to do, most of my time was spent doing all the other things that needed to happen first.

Building a deck means hauling lumber, squaring the posts, digging holes…and at least three trips to Home Depot. Writing a book means staring at blank pages, deleting paragraphs (and chapters), and researching obscure details that may never make it to print. Staying in shape means lacing up your shoes at dawn when no one else is watching. Starting a business means filling out countless forms, talking to lots of people who say no, and revisiting your reasons why, countless times. 

These tasks are not detours or distractions. They are merely steps on the journeys we’ve chosen.

If we can learn to love these quiet and often unnoticed tasks that prepare the way, we may find the joy we’re seeking was there all along.

We might discover that the thing we’re chasing isn’t the prize. It only led us to the road we were meant to walk. To meet the people we were meant to meet.

So go ahead. Lace up your shoes at dawn. Cut that first board. Tape off all the areas you don’t want to paint. Make that first sales pitch. Get to know people you never expected to meet.

Embrace all the steps that come before the thing.

It turns out, they are the thing.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” — Abraham Lincoln

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Time Does Not Heal All Wounds

“Time heals all wounds,” people say when someone we love dies. It’s a phrase offered like a Band-Aid for a broken bone. Well meaning, but inadequate for the depth of what we’re facing.

For those who have lost a daughter, a son, a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a dear friend, the truth is something different. Time doesn’t heal. It changes things, yes. It allows us to move, to function, to smile even, but it does not erase their absence. That lives inside us, a permanent resident.

When I searched for quotes and stories from others who had walked this path before me (writers, psychologists, fellow travelers through loss), I discovered that my feelings aren’t unique or abnormal.

The bereaved across time echo the same truths I’m living.

I’ve heard that grief follows a pattern of denial, anger, bargaining, withdrawal, and finally, acceptance. That may all be true. It sounds like a clean process. Just a series of steps we must go through to get to the other side.

But that path has no clean endpoint. It can stall, restart at the beginning, skip and repeat steps while never reaching a conclusion. The grieving process never ends. We merely learn to function with our grief, and we do so in our own way, as imperfectly as we do everything else in life.

Author Jamie Anderson found words for what many of us feel but struggle to express: “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

This captures exactly what happens when we reach for the phone to call them or save up a story we can’t wait to tell them. Only to remember a second later that they’re gone.

Grief isn’t a single event but a series of small realizations, each one a fresh cut.

C.S. Lewis, after losing his wife Joy, wrote about the persistence of absence: “Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.” In his book “A Grief Observed,” Lewis documented what it feels like to live inside loss. “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed.”

This is the lived experience of a body trying to process what the mind struggles to accept.

Joan Didion echoed this truth when she lost her husband, John Gregory Dunne. In “The Year of Magical Thinking,” she wrote, “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. It’s a foreign country with its own customs, its own weather, its own bewildering geography.”

There is no timeline. No tidy arc where pain transforms into peace according to some predetermined set of rules.

Dr. Lois Tonkin, working as a grief counselor in the 1990s, discovered a different truth about what healing actually looks like. A client whose child had died years earlier drew her a picture showing how her grief had initially filled her entire life. A small circle almost completely consumed by loss.

But over time, something unexpected happened. The grief didn’t shrink. Instead, her life grew larger around it. There was now space for new experiences, relationships, and meaning alongside the loss. This became known as Tonkin’s Model of Grief.

Like a tree growing around a piece of metal embedded in its trunk. We don’t absorb or eliminate the foreign object. We grow around it, incorporating it into our new shape.

This model shows us that time doesn’t diminish our grief. But it expands our capacity to hold other things along with it. Some days our grief surprises us with its suddenness. A song, a scent, a birthday or anniversary, seeing a classic car they used to drive. Other days we’re living fully in the expanded space around our grief, discovering we can hold both the wound and the wonder.

We must learn to carry the sharp pain of their absence while having gratitude for the gift of having known them at all. Our capacity to feel gratitude for the life we shared can provide much needed comfort, even though we’ll never stop missing them.

Some of the most tender truths come from those who’ve lost children. Elizabeth Edwards, who lost her 16-year-old son Wade in a car accident, offered this reminder, “If you know someone who has lost a child, and you’re afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died, you’re not reminding them. They didn’t forget they died. What you’re reminding them of is that you remembered that they lived, and that is a great gift.”

Writer Megan O’Rourke, in her memoir “The Long Goodbye” about losing her mother, captured the peculiar contrasts of grief. “You look fine. You act fine. But inside, you are not fine. And you know it will never be the same.”

This is the hard reality of grief. The simultaneous existence of functioning and not-functioning, of healing and not-healing, of being okay and not-okay. We learn to carry both states, often within the same moments.

So no, time does not heal all wounds.

Time teaches us that we can be broken and whole simultaneously. That we can miss someone terribly and still find reasons to laugh. That love doesn’t end with death. It merely changes form, expressed as the very grief we wish we could escape.

In learning to live with our wounds, we hopefully discover something about ourselves. Our capacity to grieve deeply is evidence of our capacity to love more deeply than we ever thought possible.

And maybe that’s the real truth about time and grief.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” – Mathew 5:4

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” – Psalm 34:18

“Love never ends.” – 1 Corinthians 13:8

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash

What Your 70-Year-Old Self Knows That You Don’t

We know about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and how our wants and desires are like a pyramid that goes from our basic needs up to our desire for self-actualization. The Pareto Principle reminds us that 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts, helping us focus on what truly moves the needle. Saint Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises guide us through discernment, teaching us to distinguish between what brings life and what drains it.

But there’s another framework worth considering: the evolution of what we consider important throughout our lives.

As kids, we know what’s most important. It usually revolves around attention, followed by winning at whatever we are doing, which we think will get us more of that attention we crave. Everything feels urgent. Every disappointment feels permanent. The world revolves around us, and that’s exactly as it should be for a child learning to navigate life.

Teenagers start to focus on freedom, independence, and figuring out what they’re going to do when they grow up (whatever that means). They often reject what their parents value. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes solely because rebellion feels necessary for finding their own path. What matters most is breaking free from the constraints that feel suffocating, even when those constraints were designed to protect them.

As young adults, we’re getting started, establishing our independent life, our financial foundations, our career foundations…at least we’re trying to get these things established. We’re in acquisition mode: getting the job, the apartment (maybe a house), the relationship, the respect (something we crave more than attention at this stage). We often dismiss advice from older generations, convinced they don’t understand how different the world is now.

Then something interesting happens.

As the decades flow by, what was important a few years ago, isn’t. We start to think about how to serve others, help our kids flourish, help their kids flourish. The shift is gradual but profound. From getting to giving, from proving ourselves to improving the lives of others.

Major life events accelerate this evolution. A health scare makes us realize that all the success in the world doesn’t matter if we’re not here to enjoy the fruits of our labor. The birth of a child or grandchild suddenly makes legacy more important than achievement. The loss of a parent reminds us that time is finite, and relationships are irreplaceable.

Sometimes the shift happens more quietly. Earlier this week, two co-workers were discussing the NBA finals and asked me what I thought of Game 2.  I had to admit that I haven’t followed basketball since the Magic Johnson era of the Lakers. As we talked, it became clear to me that I haven’t followed any sports—except for the Savannah Bananas baseball team’s shenanigans—in many years.

What captures my attention now? I’m drawn to watching people live their best lives in rural settings, building homesteads for themselves and their families. I find myself rooting for others to succeed in their chosen vocations, nothing more, nothing less. It’s not that sports became unimportant because they were bad. They just became less important than something else that feeds my soul more deeply.

As we get older, preserving our health, and the freedom that comes with it, moves toward the top of our priority list. Interesting how the freedom we sought as teenagers is still important to us in our senior years, but for different reasons. Then, we wanted freedom and thought we were ready for responsibility.

Now, we want freedom to focus on what truly matters. Freedom to be present for the people we love, freedom to contribute in meaningful ways, freedom from the noise that once seemed so important.

There’s a beautiful irony in how we often spend the first half of our lives accumulating things, achievements, and accolades, only to spend the second half learning to let go of what doesn’t serve us. We chase complexity when we’re young and value simplicity as we mature.

Questions worth considering:

– What would happen if we could skip ahead and see what our 70-year-old self considers important? What about our 80-year-old self? Would we make different choices today knowing what they know?

– Why do we have to learn the hard way that some of the things we chase don’t matter? Is there wisdom in the struggle, or are we just stubborn?

– How can we be more intentional about evolving our priorities on our terms instead of waiting for time to do it?

– What if we could honor the lessons each life stage provides without completely losing face and dismissing what came before?

The evolution of importance isn’t about getting it right or wrong at any particular stage. It’s recognizing that growth means what we value will shift.

That’s not a bug in the system. It’s a feature. The teenager’s desire for freedom isn’t foolish. It’s necessary for their development. The young adult’s focus on building a foundation isn’t shallow. It’s essential for future stability.

Perhaps the real wisdom comes in staying curious about what matters most. Knowing that the answer will keep evolving. And maybe, just maybe, we can learn to trust that each stage of life has something valuable to teach us about what’s truly important.

The key is staying awake to the lessons, even when they challenge what we thought we knew for certain.

Photo by Filip Kominik on Unsplash

Tacos and Time Travelers…a Dinner Conversation About the Future (and Everything That Matters)

The other night, over a casual taco dinner, one of my grandkids hit me with a question I wasn’t expecting.

“Grandpa, how old will you be in the year 2100?”

Without missing a beat, I shot back, “Nearly 140. Way too old to still be around!”

I may have been off by a few years, but we all agreed: the odds are stacked against me making it to 2100.

Then we started doing the math together, and that’s where things got interesting. They’ll be in their 90s by then. Their children and grandchildren—my great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren—will be alive and thriving in that future world. A reminder that we’re part of something much bigger. Connected to the past, but carried forward by those who will come long after we’ve gone.

“Okay, but how old will you be in 2050?”

That one felt closer, more real. “Well,” I said, “not quite 90, but almost. And you’ll be under 50.”

“What will we be doing in 2050, Grandpa?”

That’s a question only they can answer. I won’t pretend to know. I hope I’m there for at least part of it. I hope I get to laugh with them, to listen, to remind them where they came from, and to cheer them on wherever they’re headed.

Our conversation turned into something more than tacos and timelines. We started talking about how every generation builds on what came before. We carry what we’ve learned from our parents and grandparents, along with our own experiences, and hand all of that to our children and grandchildren. And they, in turn, will do the same.

Their children, my great-grandchildren, aren’t here yet, but I already have high hopes for them. I look forward to holding them, hearing their stories, and watching them discover the world just as their parents are starting to do today.

I hope they’ll learn the big things:

-How a starry sky can quiet our soul.

-How to throw and catch with confidence (it’s baseball season, so this one is top of mind right now).

-How warm and magical a campfire can be…and that S’mores taste better when your hands are sticky.

-How good it feels to help without being asked.

-How to sit quietly with someone we love and say nothing at all.

-How to cheer for someone else, even when the spotlight isn’t ours.

-The peace that comes from a walk in the woods or along a sandy shore.

But I also know they’ll learn things I’ll never understand. Things I can’t even imagine. And that’s exactly as it should be.

My deepest hope is that they’ll carry forward the timeless lessons. That love matters more than being right. That kindness isn’t weakness. That telling the truth is not only brave, but also the only way.

And that family stories are worth retelling…especially the funny ones.

So, here’s to future taco dinners, to great-grandkids I haven’t met, and to the storytellers of tomorrow.

May they keep the best of us within them always.

A Poem for My Grandkids

We sat with tacos, our chips in hand,
When you asked a question I hadn’t planned.
“Grandpa, will you still be here in 2100?”
“Not likely,” I laughed, “I’d be too old by then.”

And then we wondered who’ll be around,
Your kids and theirs, with dreams unbound.
Building a world we won’t see,
Carrying forward the best from you and from me.

We talked of shooting stars and catching balls,
Of S’mores by the fire and the night’s gentle call.
Of helping for nothing, of walking alone,
And learning to love with a heart fully grown.

You’ll learn things I’ll never know,
With gadgets and wonders I can’t imagine.
Even so, I hope what we’ve lived still finds its place,
In stories you tell with a smile on your face.

Here’s to the moments that grow into more,
To questions and memories, and tales we explore.
May love be your guide in all that you do,
And may our stories stay with you, and echo on through time.

p/c – That’s Charlie (in the cowboy hat) and Marcus from a few years ago, perfecting their marshmallow roasting techniques. 

Eyes That Understand – Welcoming our Ninth Grandchild

This week, a new set of eyes entered the world — our ninth grandchild, a baby girl. Her eyes are just beginning their work. They don’t yet see clearly. Like all newborns, her vision starts in soft focus. She sees light, shadows, movement, and faces held close. She knows the warmth of her mother’s arms, the cadence of her father’s voice, and, if I’m lucky, the gentle presence of her grandparents too.

In time, her eyes will begin to sharpen. She’ll see faces from across the room, the toys just out of her reach, her siblings and cousins. Then, the world outside the window. A broader picture will come into her view.

But even as her eyesight expands, her perspective will remain near. She’ll see how things affect her first. Hunger, comfort, joy, frustration. Her world will center on her own experience, as it should for a child learning what it means to be alive.

And then she will grow. With years and love and bumps along the way, she will begin to see more than just herself. She’ll learn to recognize others’ emotions, to feel their joy and pain. Her perspective will widen to include her friends, her extended family, her community. She will see how her actions ripple and impact others, how choices matter not just to her, but to those around her.

As more time passes, she may begin to understand something deeper. That perception is not the same as truth. That others see the same moment, the same memory, from very different angles. She’ll begin to recognize that we all wear lenses shaped by experience, belief, hope, and hurt.

And if she keeps growing, keeps learning, keeps loving, she may even come to understand the beauty in those differences. To act not just from clarity of vision, but from clarity of heart.

Even as her vision someday blurs a bit, may her wisdom sharpen. May she see what matters most. May she understand not only what is, but what could be. May she seek the life-giving fulfilment of a loving life.

And may she, in time, pass on her vision.

What We Learn to See

She was born into light too bright to grasp,
her gaze flickering toward warmth,
held by arms she could not name.

A nose. A smile. A voice that hums,
these are the shapes she first learns to trust.

Her world is inches wide.

Then, little by little,
the room expands.
Familiar faces move,
toys beckon from across the room.

Still, her eyes are mirrors,
reflecting only her own need:
Am I safe? Am I loved?
Does the world answer me?

Time stretches her view. She sees hurt in another’s face.
Joy in someone else’s triumph.
She learns that not all stories are her own.

She learns to ask: How do you see it?
And to listen for an answer.

Mistakes come. Grace follows.
She learns that sight alone isn’t understanding.
That clarity is earned, not given.

Years pass. Vision fades.
But somehow, she sees more than ever,
about herself and the world around her.

What once was blur is now meaning.
What once was noise is now truth.
What once was about her becomes about others.

And in her twilight vision,
she turns to the child,
whose eyes are still new,
and whispers:

Look close, little one,
and then look again.
You’ll stumble, and that’s part of the seeing.
You’ll hurt, and that’s part of the knowing.

Take the vision I’ve earned —
not perfect, but practiced.
Carry it forward,
along with all my love,
and the hopes I hold in my heart for you.

p/c – A photo of our daughters taken almost 30 years ago (!) They’re now passing their love, perspectives, and life lessons to their own children. Happy Mother’s Day!

The Shades Are Down – Reflecting on Anthony de Mello’s Parable

Tim Ferris has a weekly newsletter – 5 Bullet Friday.  In last Friday’s update, he highlighted a quote from The Way to Love, by Anthony de Mello.  This post isn’t related to that quote (although it could be).  It’s based on the rabbit hole I dove into, reading other parts of the book.  Right out of the gate, de Mello offers a short parable that’s simple at first glance but goes deeper the longer you sit with it.

“A group of tourists sits on a bus that is passing through gorgeously beautiful country, lakes and mountains and green fields and rivers. But the shades of the bus are pulled down. They don’t have the slightest idea of what lies beyond the windows of the bus. All the time of their journey is spent in squabbling over who will have the seat of honor in the bus, who will be applauded, who will be well considered. And so they remain until the journey’s end.”

It’s not a long parable, but it says a lot.

We are each on this ride.  This one journey through life. And all around us is beauty: the people we love, small joys, the smell of fresh rain, a child’s laughter, songbirds chirping right outside our window, the warmth of a good cup of coffee in the morning. 

But our shades are down. We don’t see any beauty, because we’re too busy with things that don’t matter.

We’re measuring. Comparing. Ranking. Arguing about position, prestige, attention. Scrolling, reacting. Meanwhile, the scenery goes by. Gorgeous, wild, and fleeting. We barely glance out the window.

What struck me about de Mello’s story wasn’t the travelers’ arguments.  It’s the view that was always there. The view never stopped being beautiful. The issue wasn’t the lack of beauty. The issue was where they were looking.

This parable is a quiet reminder to lift the shade. To let in the light. To remember that it’s not about getting the “best seat on the bus.” It’s about not missing the view.

So today, maybe take a breath. Look around. Listen a little longer. Smile at someone. Appreciate a small thing that usually passes by unnoticed.

Another of de Mello’s insights that’s in line with his parable:

“The most difficult thing in the world is to listen, to see. We don’t want to look, because if we do, we may change. We don’t want to look, because we may discover that the world is not what we thought it was.”

Sometimes the shades stay down not because we’re distracted, but because we’re afraid. If we truly see what matters, we might have to stop chasing things that don’t. We might have to let go of the version of ourselves that depends on being applauded or admired or seen in a certain way.

But what if that’s the invitation? Not to force ourselves to change, but to wake up to what’s real in our lives. To notice the world again. To feel the wonder again.

The awareness de Mello points to is freeing, like the child’s creativity in my previous post.

It’s the kind of awareness that reminds us we’re not stuck in the noise unless we choose to be. We can pull up the shade. We can look.

Because the ride is short. The view is worth seeing. 

And in that beauty, we can see we are never really far from joy.

Photo by Eiliv Aceron on Unsplash