Month: April 2023

Adventure: Looking for a larger story

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Australia’s iconic Sydney Opera House

One of my earliest childhood recollections is hearing some grownups discussing travel during a family barbecue. One of my aunts had visited Sydney and returned with several mementoes, including photo slides, trinkets and a miniature Sydney Opera house pencil sharpener. I was the awestruck recipient of the Sydney Opera House pencil sharpener. Like a precious jewel or ancient artifact, it was gold- coloured and glistened as I held it up to the sunlight.

An elderly man set down his beer and added, “You see your own country first before travelling overseas,” in a thick, nasal Australian accent. Everyone agreed by nodding. His remarks served as the “last rites” on the subject of international travel. There were entire universes in my head just begging to be explored. His universe was limited to going to the pub. Nobody else at the family gathering dared to depart from the safe and acceptable topics of conversation, which included weather, politics, news, sport and family rumours.

In retrospect, it was simple for me to pass judgement. This generation lived through the Great Depression. Not long after, the Second World War broke out. They had to deal with shortages and lost friends and relatives to war. These were sensible individuals who had cultivated a sense of thrift and valued financial stability. I was uncomfortable with their lack of curiosity and desire to consider alternate ways of understanding the world. I did appreciate hearing tales of the war or wartime escapades; some were humorous, given with a very distinctively Australian, irreverent sense of humour; other tales, however, were tragic, sad or difficult to comprehend. There is something very human within us that yearns to discover or live for a bigger narrative, to be bold and adventurous, or to be willing to give our very self for a greater good.

The beginning of a larger story: the role of organised religion.

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Alternate narratives can be found in the most unexpected locations. I was raised in a Catholic household. Despite the church’s greatest efforts to make faith in God seem uninteresting, there were always some subversive undercurrents that thrived, inspired, and provoked participants within the institution.

The elderly nun who taught us religion one day shared a fascinating tale about Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest known as the “saint of Auschwitz death camp,” with us. Franciscan friar Maximilian Kolbe resided in a monastery in Poland. Fr. Kolbe organised a temporary hospital and assisted to offer shelter for 2000 Jewish refugees when the German army invaded Poland in 1939. In the end, the Gestapo detained him for concealing refugees and put him in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The Auschwitz Deputy Commander issued an order in 1941 to execute ten prisoners in retribution for an attempted escape. One of the men begged for forgiveness since he was a father. The man’s suffering touched Fr Maximilian Kolbe, who offered to step in. The Deputy Commander granted his request, and Fr Maximilian and a few other survivors were ultimately put to death. Some Saints, such as Francis of Assisi and Teresa of Avila, bucked convention and discovered independence inside the established church. They were “Fools for Christ,” living selflessly and bravely for others. These tales had a lasting impact on my life or are still resonating now.

There circumstances where men and women freely and voluntarily sacrifice their life for others in the world today. It takes self-identity to sacrifice out of freedom rather than following some externally imposed view or belief for the sacrifice to have any real meaning. I could not really grasp how to make their example ‘my own’ unless I applied to the priesthood or a religious order. The difference between my everyday existence and the religious ideal was enormous. How was I ever going to close that gap? Feeling disappointed, I gradually turned to another source of “ancient wisdom” – the occult.

My personal quest for adventure

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When I was in my early teenage years, I started looking for adventure because I was feeling restless and discontented. I was always curious and enjoyed learning about new places, which motivated me to venture outside the realm of what I knew.

Adventure as the discovery of the external world.

In my early years, I thought of adventure as exploring the outside world. In
a  scene from the `Temple of Doom’, Indiana Jones’s sidekick, Short Round, asks him a question about the Shankara stones. Indiana Jones provides a concise explanation of his motivation: “Fortune and glory, kid, fortune and glory.” My fortune and glory were a career in politics. I gravitated to journalism. I thought this would be a practical path to a political career.

While journeying through the external world, I could no longer ignore my interior world. Like a lost traveller, I was overcome by what I
saw. I cautiously moved from the outward to the inner world to navigate through my darkness and confusion in the quest to the `treasure’. The treasure as represented by discovering the purpose of my life.   

The quest for adventure: exploring my internal world.

The unconscious is the land of the internal world. I was a reluctant
explorer, but after a period of travelling in India for 3 months during the
early nineties, I returned home to Australia feeling spiritually distraught,
confused and more fearful than ever before. There was something about this trip that touched a raw nerve inside of me. The pain and confusion of self-sabotage behaviour pushed me to go deeper into my inner world and find out what was going on beneath the surface. My India adventure had peeled back the layers to uncover my inner wounds–but it wasn’t all bad news! A whole new world revealed itself to me in greater depth: one that is mysterious and fascinating. A world expressed through the language of dreams, synchronicity and self- awareness.

Finding the hidden treasure or the `gold’ refined in the fires of
adversity.

I looked inward and found the treasure I had been searching for. In the
fires of adversity, I discovered the gold refined through my struggles. The
precious gold that came from the important life lessons and wisdom achieved along the way developed through facing adversity and uncertainty. Adventure is moving out of my comfort zone beyond what I can control and predict. It is being open to new experiences and the willingness to risk failure. Learning to embrace failure without harsh self-judgment was going to be one of my biggest personal challenges.

The next phase of adventure: the entrepreneur’s journey.

After a particularly difficult time in mainstream employment, I was
increasingly drawn to the idea of self-employment. I decided to commit to the entrepreneur’s journey. Like the promise of buried treasure, the dream began to call on me until I could no longer ignore the call. It could be starting a business, following your dreams, starting a family, quitting a job or following your dreams. There are adventures waiting to be discovered in the day- to- day routines of life.

 

The Time My Dog Almost Caused a Divorce

We had each lost our sense of self. We each need that autonomy to grow as individuals.

Guest Author Chloe Pearson

I didn’t see it then, but the day I struggled to get off the couch because my dog was sitting on me was the start of my COVID woes, as we call them now. It’s not like she was really holding me down. She’s all of ten pounds. It was that I had let myself go. My back hurts. I was 15 pounds heavier than I’d ever been. My diet was a wreck. I was depressed.

Anyway, I realize now that that was when the irritability began. It was at that moment that I started snapping at my husband for everything, and when we stopped communicating. I wanted to share my story with the Foolish Times blog because I think that we all need to learn to recognize those small moments that change everything.

Let me back up. Before COVID, my husband and I spent every weekend doing something active with our kids. Once they went to bed, we would snuggle, watch movies, and even play the occasional game of Scrabble. Then, out of the blue, everybody was home. All the time. And nobody ever left. So, naturally, we got lazy. I got lazy. While I know that there’s nothing wrong with having the occasional “do nothing” day, I quit running, quit swimming, I quit watching what I ate, and started shoving everything in my face all day long – that was a mistake.

On this day, the kids were playing in the backyard, and I heard them start yelling at each other (red flag number one). My husband and I were on the couch, and I was already annoyed because he was chewing really loud. So I went to get up, and it wasn’t easy. I got mad that he did not immediately jump up to go check on the kids, and I snapped at him by saying, “Do I have to do everything in this house!?” It was the first time I yelled at him, but it wasn’t the last.

Fast-forward. It’s late 2020, he and I had been arguing every day for the last six months, so I called my attorney. She could not see me for nearly four weeks because she was busy. Apparently, we were not the only ones having marital problems. I had also gained more weight, couldn’t get a haircut, and my liquor cabinet was starting to run dry. Looking back, I’m glad that she could not make the appointment because I had another moment that changed my outlook. My youngest asked me why I hated daddy and why I always looked so tired, even though I was sleeping well past breakfast.

I had to make a change, and I started by separating my and my husband’s workspaces so that I could at least have some time during the day when we were not staring at each other. I turned our spare bedroom into my office, and I made sure it was organized and that I put my desk next to the window. That helped. Being on the other side of the house all day felt a little more normal than sharing the sitting room during business hours.

I even started thinking again about starting my own business and what that might look like. I started by brainstorming some ideas in the quiet of my new home office space. Then, I ran a few of them by my husband before landing on one that I wanted to pursue.

Next, I started working out again. I bought leggings – not the cheap “buttery soft” leggings half the women in my neighborhood sell; I needed something more durable that was also comfortable. I also got some new sports bras and a pair of Saucony running shoes (these, for anyone interested).

Our home is in an area with a good walk score, so I started slowly by walking past the closed shops and restaurants. As I gained back my strength and stamina, my walks turned into jogs and then runs. By this time, I could report what businesses were letting people back in and where we might be able to dine outside as a family.

While things were still tense for the next three or so months, I slowly began to regain my energy, and I apologized to my husband for the last year. But, we knew that we needed more than just an apology from me to put things right. He began working on himself as well, so he quit drinking, and all four of us began spending time together again.

As the world began to reopen, he got permission from his employer to go back into the office, and schools finally started taking students back. I think this was huge for the kids because they no longer had to rely on just me and my husband for socialization. After a couple of months, they were more confident and healthier, and were following directions better than ever.

Today, I have lost most of my weight, which has helped me feel better about myself. I’m also meditating every day. My husband quit drinking (and quit eating in the living room!). We have been going to therapy for three months and realize that we love each other very much. Our problem was that we just did not know how to intertwine every moment of our lives together. We had each lost our sense of self. We each need that autonomy to grow as individuals.

While life is still not back to “normal,” I still have my private office, and the kids are not allowed in there. I’m still exercising. And, most importantly, I’ve learned to invest in myself so that I can be a better wife and mom.