Practice

My earlier working life was unconventional. For many years, I worked as a nurse on evening and night shifts. I worked during the day as well at small businesses I contrived to make ends meet. I wasn't the tech entrepreneur looking to make millions and be famous. My nurse's salary, humble by today's pay scale for nurses, would not support high city rents. I worked for money to live. I did not live to work.

Working nights and days took its toll, even on the strapping young man I was then. I recall looking on in awe as my friends with conventional jobs flew off to exotic places for a weekend. How do they do it, I wondered. It didn't occur to me how much energy I would have if I wasn't working so many hours a week. My work was simply what I felt I had to do to be a responsible person.

I realize now, as I see some of my peers struggle with aging, that I developed my own center of being throughout those hard years. I learned a kind of balancing habit which has served me well as I have dealt with severe disease and aging. My consciousness has a center which is firmly rooted in what I have discovered and nurtured as my better self.

I know this sounds like psycho-babble or self-help pablum to some. Unless you have been under some form of serious duress, I doubt you will understand me. If you have experienced trauma in your life, you may well understand me, or you may think I am just fooling myself. However, I am sharing this with those of you who may need encouragement in your search for your center, your balance, your peace..

I believe that mental exercise is no different than physical exercise. Just as a gymnast easily balances on a beam after years of practice, so the person with a daily mental practice balances when assailed by the unavoidable gravity of a mortal  existence. Some of us resign ourselves to being self-soothing klutzes. But others embrace the challenge and rewards of the hard work of balancing. Practice is simply the mental and physical work of achieving that balance, that personal center, rooted in values and aspirations. Humanist practice is rooted in humanist values and aspires to promote peace, justice and a better life for all. All practice exists in the moment.