way of recognising that something significant has been achieved, of saying thank you to friends, family, teammates, the divine... whoever.
In a festive pause, we look one another in the eye, we repeat old stories, we raise a glass, we celebrate the past, and the present, and look to the future.
14
Write down the day
We’re all trying to get a better view of ourselves, but as there’s so much of ourselves to see, perspective can be hard to come by. However, the simple act of setting pen to notepad and keeping a journal can help us step back and bring life into focus.
From the messiest scribble to the most considered and patient entry, a diary helps us stop, reflect and express who we are now. Taking time to write down our lives slows our racing thoughts, and briefly offers us the chance to see them in some kind of order. It enables us to get a feel for the shape of this life we’re in. It helps us, says Joan Didion, ‘remember what it was to be me. That is always the point.’1
In her book The Artist’s Way, written to help people harness their innate creativity, Julia Cameron popularised the notion of producing ‘Morning Pages’ as a path to clear-headedness. Writing three pages, or 750 words, she recommends putting all your thoughts on the page for half an hour – including everything that’s going wrong, the self-doubt, the criticism, the anxiety:
Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes. We are more honest with ourselves, more centred, and more spiritually at ease.2
Three pages may prove a luxury. On some mornings we seem to have no time; on others we seem to have nothing to say. But journal entries don’t have to be long, deep or profound. They may be simple sketches or lists: music you’re listening to; films you’ve seen; a novel that touched you. It might be as simple as a note of what someone said to you which you’d like to remember.
Other entries may dive down: asking yourself why a relationship has gone pear-shaped; musing on whether you really could leave your job and change career. Even entries which seem like a dump of inarticulate feelings can, later, glint with moments of clarity.
To distinguish a diary from the week’s routine writing, it can help to write by hand, not on screen, to set aside a book which you don’t use for anything else – and to keep it private. You can be much more honest with yourself if you know no one else is going to read what you write.
A diary may only be cursory, a snapshot. But over time it can become an increasingly reliable witness to your life. As you re-read entries from months or years before, sometimes a journal can become a map of your days, warning you about blind alleys and cul-de-sacs, and, in hilly terrain, encouraging you with a reminder of the view ahead.
Step out of the routine of daily obligations. Step back from the minutiae of each day. Take a look at your life in the round. Record your days. Listen back. See who you are.
15
LISTEN TO YOUR LIFE
SEE IT FOR THE FATHOMLESS MYSTERY IT IS. IN THE BOREDOM AND PAIN OF IT NO LESS THAN IN THE EXCITEMENT AND GLADNESS: TOUCH, TASTE, SMELL YOUR WAY TO THE HOLY AND HIDDEN HEART OF IT BECAUSE IN THE LAST ANALYSIS ALL MOMENTS ARE KEY MOMENTS, AND LIFE ITSELF IS GRACE.1
FREDERICK BUECHNER, NOVELIST
16
Be kind
Proverbs are back. Short, pithy sayings which make you laugh, surprise you with a twist, or invite you to think twice about your day. Authorship is often contested. As Abraham Lincoln himself once put it: ‘The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you never know if they’re genuine.’
Among the millions of online aphorisms, few have gained popularity and staying power like the following soundbite by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’
Actually, as Lincoln would have undoubtedly pointed out (had he not died 150 years before the arrival of the internet), Plato did not say this, but the attribution doubtless contributes to its longevity. It was probably coined by the nineteenth-century Scottish writer Ian McClaren who, when asked by a religious weekly for a Christmas message, replied: ‘Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.’
We wouldn’t use the word ‘pity’ these days, we might use the word ‘empathy’, a quality that we cannot underestimate according to anthropologist Jane Goodall:
Empathy is really important. Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our true potential.1
In public or in private, all of us are wrestling with the complexities of living this life – from how to negotiate a relationship to how to pay the bills. Some days are difficult and resolution refuses to arrive. Responding with kindness will never make things worse – and usually make them better.
‘Kindness is like water,’ says the Dalai Lama, ‘religion like tea.’2
Come again?
In Ethics are More Important than Religion he describes how the tea we drink is made mostly of water, but it also contains other ingredients as well to make it taste good. But however we make it, the main ingredient of tea is always water. And when push comes to shove, we can live without tea, but not without water. Likewise, he says, ‘we are born without religion, but not without the basic need for compassion’.
In other words, while the human race could probably survive without religion, we don’t stand a chance without kindness.
17
Trade stories
Our lives are shaped by stories. They’re stories in themselves. When we meet someone new we begin by telling them our story: where we come from, who our parents were, where we went to school... what happened on the next page, the next chapter. We’re all storytellers.
Our nations and tribes, our faith traditions and families are built on stories. Defining myths, victories, defeats, parables, folktales, anecdotes – history, herstory.
Some of the tales we tell are rooted in actuality, others are embroidered. Some are made up from scratch. But – fact, fiction or faction – they’re often ‘true’. Before modernity and fundamentalism burdened us with an obsession with fact and literalism, people would seldom ask of a story: ‘Did it happen?’ Instead they’d ask: ‘Is it true?’ They sensed that, in the words of poet Mary Oliver, ‘they won’t be false, and they won’t be true but they’ll be real’.1
Flannery O’Connor put it perfectly: ‘I’m always highly irritated,’ she said, ‘by people who imply that writing fiction
