Give and take

Every day when I would leave work, I would pass this old man on crutches asking for assistance. The thing that really struck me about the guy was how cheerful he appeared to be. By looking at him, you could tell he was in a bad way. He was extremely tall, which only made his standing on crutches that much more pronounced. His face was severely sunken in. He only had a few teeth remaining in his mouth. He looked like at one time he had been a big, strong guy but time had gotten the best of him.
I worked for a department store that gave out beverages to pretty much anyone who came in to look around. I usually left with a bottle of water that I would or would not drink depending on how hot of a day it was. I started handing these bottles to the guy on the crutches,whom I had started calling "Sarge" because of the military cap that I always saw him wearing. After a while, it appeared that Sarge was anticipating my daily water delivery. His gratitude was obvious. It felt great to genuinely help. My wife, Madelaine, a giver by nature, began working in the area and began joining me in my "deliveries". It got to a point where we would start bringing things from home to give to him. One Thanksgiving, Madelaine brought him a whole dinner. That wasn't the last time she did that, either. After I had left my job at the department store, we started saving water bottles, cleaning them out, and re-filling them with fresh water in order to try and always have something for him.
There was a joy in providing something for someone for no reason at all. I felt it when I did not have anything for Sarge. It felt like I was supposed to receive something but didn't. Other than on a basic level, I can't say that Sarge felt the strain any more than I did. It made me know that I would be interested in doing more. I had done things like this before, but I never thought too deeply into it. There were times when charity had helped me out, so I tried to return the favor. I never thought about receiving and giving producing the same feelings.
We have created a society that requires payment for everything. It cuts us off from the connection that comes from giving from our hearts. Contributing to charities mandates a tax write-off(which kind of no longer makes it charity, correct?). I was raised in this "everything costs" mind state. I've found that both people who feel they have never given and people who feel they have never really received tend to look at things similarly. The truth is, we should be thankful that we don't always get what we deserve and that sometimes we get things we didn't work for. There are things that fit both descriptions for us all, no matter what we've convinced ourselves of. Give and take are one in the same, in the end.

The Swimming Lesson

My mother made sure that my sister and I knew how to swim. I took lessons from age 7 to age 9. Summer would come, and we would head to the pool at the local Air Force base. It seemed that my lessons would always go the same way: I would start out scared as hell, flailing my hands everywhere in the water, grasping for the edge. By the time the last day of the lessons would come, however, I would be confident, moving through the water with relative ease. Now, realize that even though I would leave sure of myself, the next summer I would return only to go through the same process. It seemed that I had totally forgotten about the esteem I had gathered during the previous lessons! Panic would set in again and I would be back to square uno. I stopped taking lessons when I was 10. I had become a strong enough swimmer to go to the public pool with friends.
Today, I think about the swimming experience and how much it is an anology for our life's journey's. Often times we go through one thing, struggling and gasping for oxygen, and we fight our way through it and come out feeling better about ourselves. This rush of "feeling better" only lasts until we come back "next summer" for our next "swimming lesson", where we start the whole thing all over again, almost completely oblivious to strides that were made previously. The key is to hold on to that feeling of empowerment, even when your not "in the water". Had I done this, I might have been leaping off of the high dive sooner.
Swimming in general is a great analogy for life. When swimming, if you fight against the water, you lose energy and will eventually drown. To swim correctly is to move with the water and to recognize your own buoyancy. The rougher the water, the more you have to move with it. Anyone who has ever swam in the ocean can tell you how futile it is to try and swim against the current. If you look at the word "current" with another meaning(i.e up to date, presently), it points even more to the idea of adapting to the moment. The "current" moment. Treading water is nice, but one can only do this for so long before they run out of energy and go under. This can be likened to stagnation, staying in one place(which is essentially what treading water is). The key is to keep it moving as much as possible until you reach the "shores" or the "edge" of self realization.

Learn to "swim" my friends, and life is a beach!