We spend the rest of our lives navigating that pain.  It’s a set up.  At an early age we start to define ourselves by where we stand as it relates to others. “I know where I am because I can see where you are. Without you, I am actually less sure of who I am.”

Our sense of identity is all too often based on this comparative viewpoint. There are the basics: we are shorter or taller,  better or worse looking, richer or poorer. And there are the fantasies: Your life looks better. You seem to be more successful, have more friends, have more fun. And my personal favorite, you seem to know the “right way to live.”

I repeat.  It’s a set up.  Your life is not a comparative sport.  It is a personal journey of experience.  If there’s going to be any comparing maybe it’s where we started to where we’ve landed at this moment.  Actually, I kind of like that one.  It allows me to see the progress I’ve made as a human being on the planet. And that really helps on days when I’m particularly hard on myself.

To a certain extent, that position is enhanced by having a sense of destination and projectory.  Who do I want to be? How do I want to be? What’s important to me in how I choose to live my life and how I choose to be in relationship?

My driving force for many years was comparative living.  I was simply trying to not be my mother. So the choices I made were all geared in “not-ness.”  I wasn’t moving toward anything, I was just moving away from.  I also remember living comparatively  to a friend who actually seemed like she knew what she was doing…how to raise her kids, organize her house, balance her life. It was only with maturity that I learned that my mother had some incredible strengths and that my friend had very few “real” answers.

Maybe my comparative living ended when I figured out that really nobody is without strengths and flaws. It’s simply a part of our humanity. And that is really what I embrace.  I absolutely delight in my own strengths and weaknesses and those of my family and friends because we are part of the human experiment.  We learn through both of those aspects of our lives. And the learning and teaching and evolving are really the best gifts we can give to each. We don’t have to be right, we don’t have to be better, we just have to be in it together. That’s enough.

Let me put it bluntly, once your dead, I don’t think you worry. What is, is. So even if you’re not that thrilled with what you’ve left, there’s nothing to do about it. I don’t actually think there’s any
point in worrying about your legacy even while you’re still alive. It’s more important to live in the spirit of your destiny, what you’re being called to do. It’s more important to live in this moment.

I’m not too big on thinking about the “larger than life” legacy relegated to presidents and world leaders. I’m just not in that league. But I do know that I am responsible for the way I impact the people in my life and for knowing that the impact has the possibility of affecting the lives of others, rippling out for generations to come.

Pain perpetuates. The mother who abuses her children impacts them and their children and their children and their children.

Love perpetuates, too. The unmarried uncle who shows up and pays attention to his niece inspires enough confidence to make her successful in life, positively impacting those around her.

Of course, at every turn, we are the only ones who have the ability to choose how we respond to others and how we impact others. We can even choose to use our negative experiences to produce positive ones. My mother had experienced so much death in her family at such a young age, she had a tough time showing love, actually had a fear of it. Being raised by her inspired me to embrace love and to value the demonstration of love in my own family.

We will die. It will just happen to all of us. But the impact of how we choose to live, that will live forever.

My obligation to myself is to live fully, to be engaged in living today, in this moment of breath. Allowing myself to stay stuck in the past or focus on an unknown future is simply a waste of my time. It’s a waste of this moment.

Worry to me is useless. I have heard it said that worry is wishing for what you don’t want to happen. It certainly puts energy in that direction. My mother worried, incessantly. She worried when my father drove to work, and back again. She worried anytime my sister and I left the house. I once analyzed the hours she worried everyday. She had literally lost decades of her life to worry.

Like my mother, I know so many people who really feel overwhelmed by worry. They feel that they have no control over it. It’s as though this free-floating anxiety has all the power to invade them, overwhelm them and terrorize them. I understand that. I experienced that and actually established a pretty firm discipline to change that behavior because I am unwilling to give up the joy of this moment.

I give myself times to worry. Really. Assigned times. I can worry about anything on the hour for 10 minutes. So if my worry shows up at 3:20, I simply say to myself, “Miki, I see you are worried and I give you permission to worry, but only at 4 p.m. for 10 minutes.” When 4 p.m. comes, if I remember to worry, I do (and it’s really tough to focus energy purely on any worry for a dedicated 10 minutes). And, if 4 p.m. passed and I forgot to worry, then I have to wait til 5 p.m.

Does it work? It absolutely worked for me. Because I was no longer powerlessness. I was no longer taking time away from what I was doing, from the present. And worry released its hold on me. I worry less and less, and, usually, not at all. In fact, I’ve gotten really out of touch with how to worry, which sometimes looks like I’m in denial. Maybe I don’t want to be known as the Queen of Denial or the Queen of Acceptance. Maybe what I’d really like to be known as is the Queen of this Moment of Holy Breath. Aaah!

I’ve heard so many reasons for why we lost our way. Including one theory that said that the boomers generation felt guilty because even though we had Vietnam, we didn’t have a big war to fight. Supposedly we used our work as the way to show that we had as much passion and drive as our parents/grandparents. Work was our proving ground.

Accepting the work-as-a-priority model as the right way to live influenced so many decisions. Where we spent our time. Where we spent our money. And certainly how we measured our success. Even when we chose to spend time with our families, we often had thoughts of work dancing in our heads.

With mortality creeping closer, we started to change our tune. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t life that we were supposed to fit into our work schedule. Maybe life is really about living and work while important is actually only one component of the experience.

After all these years, however, it’s just not that easy to switch up the model. Sometimes, we don’t even know who we are without the measures of our success from adding more designer details to our homes to expanding the tally of our LinkedIn contacts. And for many of us, we truly don’t know who we are if we aren’t productive…if we aren’t living in the land of doing. Simply being without multi-tasking doesn’t feel quite as fulfilling as proudly highlighting what we “accomplished” on our to-do list.

It takes practice to give up what we’ve been doing and swing into the unknown of how to be. It requires giving into that gnawing sense that there is something else.  Peering into the darkness and the discomfort of not knowing what that is, but taking slow tentative steps toward discovery. Conversations change. Small talk evaporates replaced with deeper, more intimate talk about the concerns and joys of our shared humanity. It’s a more vulnerable way to live, and because of that, more real and more rewarding. I know this. It’s my choice.

Check out author Tree Reisner’s blog this week (http://treeriesener.blogspot.com) with an interview about my upcoming book, How to Hear God in 7 Days. Thanks to Betti Kahn, author, Night Spark: The Zoe Poems, for bringing me onboard. 

I asked her, “Why is everyone so afraid of you?” “I don’t really know,” she replied. “Really going with me is just like going on a trip to London.” She paused. “Although I guess we all know people who come back from London.”

I think that there’s a comfort to mortality. I think some day, when the timing is right, I will simply fall back into a large white parachute, letting go of worry, letting go of fear and just relaxing into the silkiness.

Until that time, I find it comforting to think that the reason for my mortality is to drive my living. We are all here for such a short time that it is important to discern what we really want our lives to be about. There is a wonderful Buddhist metaphor. That we are each like the sea turtle swimming underwater for a long period, rising to the surface to take in a big gulp of air and then submerging again. That gulp of air is our lifetime. It is only here that we get to do our work and our good deeds.

To me, the only reason for our death and the deaths of those we love is to give urgency to how we choose to live. It offers us, in fact, the ultimate literal deadline.

Forced to face the thought of the ending of my life has raised questions about my existence. Questions about my destiny. What am I meant to do in this life? How can I help others? I struggle for a bit to try and determine what is the best path. And then I stop. This is not about struggling.This is about listening deeply and having the courage and self-compassion to take the very next step.

We have all come into the world to sing our tune, to learn life’s lessons and to share with others where we can do the most good. Living reveals who we are with all of the blessings of our human strengths and our human frailties. We learn from both and if we don’t learn from our own experiences, maybe at least others will. That is of great comfort.

But I don’t think that’s the reality. Life never stands still. It is really one rolling change after another. And the more we try to hold onto the way it is, the more tightly we try to cling, the more we strangle the energy of the adventure.

The only way the new normal makes any sense to me is that we acknowledge that it occurs moment to moment. Every moment is unlike the next. Every moment adds to me and makes me slightly different than the moment before. Every moment is the new normal which means that no moments really are. We can never really settle in to just one way of living. Life doesn’t work that way.

In some ways every moment that we make a choice is accompanied by a moment of loss. When we choose one thing, we don’t choose another. I remember choosing to be a working mom and needing to acknowledge my heartfelt loss that I would not be an-always-there-with-milk-and-cookies mom. I was talking to a friend of mine who was always quite a partier and now had young children. She loves her new family and still holds onto the loss of having that after 2 a.m. good time. She is, in fact, struggling with accepting her new normal because there’s a piece of her still clinging to the past. Let it go, I say. Embrace what is. And then it’s not the “new” normal…it’s just the joy and adventure of squeezing the most out of the life we’re living and getting a big hug from life back.

I enjoy almost all writing. Taking complicated ideas and simplifying them.  Understanding them in a way that makes them accessible to me and to others. Accessible, but not always understandable.  Life is complex. And just because we “get it” doesn’t mean that we “GET IT.”  There are so many ideas and concepts that are just beyond our pea-brains, our limited knowledge of how the world works…which all boils down to our small, narrow perspective at this moment in time.

Perspective changes easily. One of my favorite exercises is when people are sitting around a table. Ask them to look around the room and then ask them to change their seat. The difference is stunning. In that moment they touch the tip of knowing that what others were seeing in that room was totally different than what they were seeing. The room is the same, but the perspective changed dramatically.

We can’t fully know each other’s perspectives.  We can’t really wear each other’s moccasins.  But knowing that the Truth is the Truth for both of us can help us put aside our righteousness and open up to the possibility that the Truth may exist, but we are each only getting to see our slice of it. Both of our views can be right because they are only perspective. That clarity, and that feeling of letting go to allow someone else to be fully right and share the same space as you, even when you don’t share the same perspective, that’s another kiss of zen. Ah!

But I have difficulty doing it.  I have a million and one reasons why I don’t have the time to write or don’t have a good idea to write about.  What stands in my way of writing on a daily basis?  Or of asking the Divine, as I am so often led to do, what should I do?  Just purely my own ego.

An ego that says, “I’m not good enough to write.”  “Others have said it all.”  “There is nothing new I really have to say.” “It’s embarrassing to share my thoughts, to be exposed.”  “I’m not a good enough writer.”

Often I think of my ego as the power that keeps me safe.  It guards me from others by helping me protect my space.  But in the world of the Divine, ego is just the way I separate myself from feeling the energy of oneness that connects us all.  My ego, which has its own legitimate needs, will block me from sharing the reality of who I am.

I know with certainty that my ego will definitely show itself when it’s needed but then it just keeps going.  I become overrun with my own thoughts growing wild like the weedy vine that takes over my backyard fence, choking the best of my fragile and beautiful flowers.

I’ve been working for years to remove that barrier. Slowly and painstakingly, I identify what my ego is saying and meticulously shave and melt the ice block that covers my true and loving self.  Believe me, it’s a lot of work.  Everyday.

But I’m so clear that my ego is an obstacle to my best self.  My ego prevents me from really being there for another, from seeing another’s viewpoint, from being able to be there fully without fear of losing myself. My ego prevents me from learning because I am afraid to show what I don’t know. My ego stops me from being fully held by the Divine because I am “not worthy” of unconditional love.

In one of my most favorite quotes, Marianne Williamson writes about how we are blocked by our ego.   “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles)

For me the truth is, I can’t afford to be stopped and blocked by myself any longer.  I am living with cancer.  And I don’t have any time to waste.  I have to risk being my best self, everyday. For my life to be its most meaningful, I don’t have a choice.  And so for today, I’m writing.

Her passing was amazing.  She took to it like a duck to water.  She was clear she was passing into a higher realm, a place that was closer to Divine Light and she took every opportunity to demonstrate that.

She laughed on her deathbed in the way that Sarah laughed when God told her she would have a child so late in life. With an unbelievable joy about the blessings she already had and would be receiving.  She was surrounded by her children, granchildren and greatgrandchild and told each one of us to “all be good” knowing that our ability to continue to transcend our personal needs to spread goodness was really what mattered most in life. And she asked us to celebrate her life by continuing to live ours with joy and laughter.  It is one reason that I and my daughters have donned bright red nailpolish for her funeral — her signature color —  in honor of her love of life.

She continued to live til her last breath.  Day after day she removed the protective masks that had shadowed her during her lifetime.  Her fears.  Her need to protect her heart from love so she could not be hurt by loss.  She stripped herself down so that at the end of her days she was pure love and light. A lesson for all of us in how to live at our best.  To live fully may require us to continually remind ourselves of the beauty we are granted each day while looking at our own mortality face to face.

My mother’s passing will continue to add meaning to my life and those who surround me as we honor the many lessons she has shared.

And I’m not alone. In the U.S., we give about 2.5.% of our income to charitable causes.  And about a quarter of us volunteer either formally or informally.  In fact, about 61,800,000 American give about 8,100,000,000 hours of service to American communities.   (Visit VolunteeringInAmerica.gov for the rest of the stats.)

I get why people volunteer to help out.  It’s the thought that your life should be about more than yourself.  In the last couple of months I’ve kept wondering what my legacy is supposed to be.  And then, I realized that wasn’t exactly the right question.  ”My” legacy is not what’s important.  What’s important is “what does the earth, my community, the people that I love need?” “What can I provide?” It’s a much easier question to answer because it’s right in front of me everyday.

The point of my life is to help another.   If I help another, I really feel like I am squeezing the GodJuice down into life on a day-to-day basis.  Not just living with a sense of the Divine, but living with a sense of the Divine here on earth.

We need to give and we need to open ourselves to receive. None of us can live life on our own.  We all have needs that can only be met by someone outside of ourselves.  If we accept that, we can more easily reach out a hand to help.  And we can more easily reach out to ask for help.  The beauty of our humanity lives in the vulnerability we share; not in the distance we put between ourselves.  We are are inextricably linked one to the other and that inextricably links us to the Divine.  And, the Divine to us.