How to be Chill: Part Six

Understand

It was difficult to not bleed into this post with Part Five. When people get me down, are incompetent or cannot be everything I want or need them to be, it’s important to understand: Understand that they are a collection of experiences like you and me. They were born into this world, have a family (or not) and have lived through lives in the same way you and I live. Any decision they make is a product of their thoughts and feelings, which were formed by their experiences.

All people are people and no more. It’s difficult to not demonize and I find the easiest way to love is to understand.

To better illustrate this, I like to call to mind Thomas Merton’s Louisville Epiphany. 

Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, I suddenly realized that I loved all the people and that none of them were, or, could be totally alien to me. As if waking from a dream — the dream of separateness, of the “special” vocation to be different. My vocation does not really make me different from the rest of men or put me is a special category except artificially, juridically. I am still a member of the human race — and what more glorious destiny is there for man, since the Word was made flesh and became, too, a member of the Human Race!

Thank God! Thank God! I am only another member of the human race, like all the rest of them. I have the immense joy of being a man! As if the sorrows of our condition could really matter, once we begin to realize who and what we are — as if we could ever begin to realize it on earth.

(From Thomas Merton’s private journal, March 19, 1958)

This mindset is the beginning of an empathic civilization. Personally, it means being chill in the midst of people you couldn’t stand otherwise. Understand who people are and who you are in relation to them and the whole world syncs together and you become overwhelmed with the web of connections.

There’s also no way to completely understand the significance of everything. There are so many things we will never perceive or understand in this life. Something tiny to us may be monumental in the grand scheme and to God and vice versa. 

The most important thing to understand is that we can never understand.

For Jacki.

How to be Chill: Part Five

Love

This could just as easily be written “do not hate.” Hate corrodes my very being. To hate somebody is to estrange them from myself. When I realize that all people are my brothers and sisters and resist demonizing them, nothing can bother me. We’re all in the same boat and life is too precious to damage by harboring hate.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?”

(Matthew 5:43-47)

The topic of love is far too complex to boil down into a single post. Sin itself is described as an offense against Charity, and Jesus rarely speaks of anything aside from love!
When your neighbor injures you, it’s usually a result of ignorance. Don’t harbor hate. It will never do you any good. Hate is ignorant and it’s totally un-chill.

More on that in Part Six.

For Jacki.

How to be Chill: Part Two

Faith

There’s no way to make this aspect of “chill” secular. Faith is a trust that things are as they should be, that all life including yours is ordered whether or not you can see it. When I do everything I can and act out of love, there’s no way I can fail. Do what you can, step back, and leave it in God’s hands.

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

(Tao te Ching 9)

When you don’t know if something will work out, that’s fine. If it does or if it doesn’t, it’s not up to you. This is a common theme in most, if not all belief systems; be not attached to the fruits of your labor. Relax, the world doesn’t depend on you.

For Jacki.

How to be Chill: Part Four

Read the Tao te Ching

I’ve already cited it many times so if I implied it before, I say it directly now: the Tao is one of the most useful things I have read in my entire life and it will stick with me forever. It syncs up well with Christianity, but imperfectly. Just use your own judgement on what you read and don’t accept it as scripture. The Tao is less of a book on theology and more of a guide for living.

It’s available online here or you can borrow my copy. I’m not picky about translations but the one I have is good and, personally, I enjoy a physical book.

For Jacki.

How to be Chill: Part Three

Be Not Afraid

Fear is the opposite of faith, the opposite of trust. When I fear for my career, my grades or even my life, I doubt that things are as they should be. When I am afraid, I act like an animal, I stop thinking rationally and act disorderly. Fear permeates all thought and throws it all into disarray.

Fears include (but are not limited to): 
Fear that others may laugh at you.
Fear that others think poorly of you.
Fear that you may lose people you love.
Fear that nobody loves you.
Fear that nobody can or will love you.
Fear that you may end up homeless.

Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you. 

(Tao te Ching 44)

The fall of man was when we decided we could be our own gods instead of trusting the Creator of all Reality. When you understand you’re not in control, there is nothing to fear.

The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?

(Psalm 27)

For Jacki.

How to be Chill: Part One

Perspective

Often it seems as if my whole world is shaken. I get flustered and worried about my future and my life. The next day when I wake up I realize everything is as it should be. If it’s out of my control, I work with it. In the grand scheme of things, it all meant little, if anything.

The trick is to remember this sooner.

If you’re tense, put it in perspective. Follow all your worries to their final conclusions. What is the worst case scenario? What does it mean over the course of your life? Does it have any cosmological significance? What does it mean in light of Christ’s resurrection? Does it have any effect on how much God loves you (Hint: No, it doesn’t.)?

When you’re distressed, stop thinking with emotions and use your head.

That’s the first step on the path to being chill.

For Jacki.