Dead Beginnings!

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. – Seneca (54 BC-34AD), A Roman rhetorician whose studied great orators such as Cicero.

This weekend I was in attendance at a service for my buddy’s mother who has just passed away. I could not have even imagined a more idyllic setting as we all sat in a classic Cape Cod chapel listening to some final thoughts about Dottie! But the one comment that really made me think was a reference to a new beginning. It was expressed that to fully realize our full potential we have to pass through death. Beyond the obvious connotation, I began to think that the concept holds great truth when it comes to personal change! So many of us are seeking real and meaningful change and are trapped in a painful and sometimes hopeless spot where becoming who we really want to be would require the death of who we currently are…and that’s a tough pill to swallow on many levels!

First of all, it would require that we embrace the humility to admit that we just don’t like who we have become.I’m not talking about some public forum where we stand up and admit in a shameful way how we have gone astray…I think that’s fine when we need emotional support through our trials and tribulations. What I’m really thinking about is that moment when we look in the mirror and experience the true humility to admit that we are off track…not anybody else’s opinion of where we should be headed, rather deep inside where we reconcile the difference between what we know we could be and who we are now! Yet every time we get to that point, we take the easy way out because we associate change with embarrassment and I’m going to make a strong argument that public embarrassment could be the greatest fear of all!

Think about it for a moment…are you afraid to make that personal meaningful change because you are afraid of “failure” or the fact that your spouse, your kids, your friends will laugh in your face when you tell them about pursuing what you really dream about! You know the truth…acceptance and reaffirmation are essential for most people…we have craved it since childhood! Think about being laughed at by your parents or worse, other kids in school…I bet those memories are a lot more painful than trying something and not doing well the first time out!

You see, my friend Dottie came from the “old school” as we like to say in Boston. She worked hard and never really cared what other people thought or said about her. She lived below her means and saved her money. She told her kids the way it really was and never pulled punches…I’m sure when she met someone who tried to pull her down she simply moved on. She had the love of her husband and kids, not because she bent like a flower in a stiff wind every time they “wanted,” rather because she stood fast in her beliefs and was unshakable!

So as I drove away from the service I thought to myself…here we go again with another example of a fading generation that is trying to tell us something valuable. What’s even better, is that during the gathering afterwards, she had inspired us to reminisce about family backgrounds and how the old generation lived…there were stories of factory workers who toiled day and night just to make a better way for their kids…and I guarantee you they didn’t worry about what anybody thought!

So at the end of this history lesson, I felt a strong message…if you don’t like where you are then do something about it! Stop extending your arm and blaming somebody else! It’s in your hands, not theirs! The greatest challenge you face is the death of the person you don’t want to be! So start realizing what a wonderful elixir personal humility can be! It’s a remedy that has existed inside of you since the day your where born and it’s only a question of when you decide to tap into it! You know it when you see it on the face of somebody else and yearn for it…so go get it! Over the last thirty days I saw it on the faces of my friends Glenn and Sheila as they cared for Glenn’s mother in her final days! They were at peace as they turned their lives over to someone else and through death found wonderful new beginnings here and now!

This post is dedicated to the memory of Dottie Tobin…thanks for helping us find a our new beginning through yours!