THE CHAPTERS: life lessons

Chapter 15

ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ
Final lesson

most people today have been given everything they need to make their life work. Not everyone is as accomplished and as beautiful as she is. She is a good exam- ple only because she is such an obvious one. Most people have all they need to be happy- but are not. We're not happy with what we have accomplished, big or small. We are not content with our looks. But the truth is, we are never as unattractive as we feel. It's our inner experiences that are lacking. We have been given all we need to have a fulfilling, mean- ingful, and happy experience of life. We just don't recognize our own gifts, or goodness.
In counseling, people often discount or deny their goodness. Some of the most committed, giving, and loving people seem unawartf of the impact they have on the world. From pres- idents of charities to the clergy, to those who work tirelessly to prevent intolerance, they seem painfully unaware of their goodness. They seem to lack the ability to see the truth about who they really are.
We often share this story with these indi- viduals: There once was a man with a pure heart who performed good deeds. He also made mistakes, but that didn't matter, not only because he did so many wonderful things, but because he learned from his errors. Unfortu- nately, he was so aware of his good deeds that he became full of himself.
God realized that a good person who made mistakes but continued evolving would be okay, but one who became prideful would never find happiness. So He took away this man's ability to see his good deeds, saving that knowledge until his mortal work was done. The man continued doing good deeds, and all those around him appreciated them, but he himself never felt them or understood how much good he was doing. Finally, at the end of his life, God showed him all the good deeds he had done.
Often, we don't recognize our goodness until the end of life. We need to remember that we are here to try to remember our good- ness and remind each other of our precious- ness, and the miracle of each other.
From the beginning to the end, life is a school, complete with individualized tests and challenges. When we've learned all we can possibly learn, and when we have taught all we can possibly teach, we return home.
It's sometimes hard to see what the lessons are. It's difficult to understand, for example, because he learned from his errors. Unfortu- nately, he was so aware of his good deeds that he became full of himself.
God realized that a good person who made mistakes but continued evolving would be okay, but one who became prideful would never find happiness. So He took away this man's ability to see his good deeds, saving that knowledge until his mortal work was done. The man continued doing good deeds, and all those around him appreciated them, but he himself never felt them or understood how much good he was doing. Finally, at the end of his life, God showed him all the good deeds he had done.
Often, we don't recognize our goodness until the end of life. We need to remember that we are here to try to remember our good- ness and remind each other of our precious- ness, and the miracle of each other.
From the beginning to the end, life is a school, complete with individualized tests and challenges. When we've learned all we can possibly learn, and when we have taught all we can possibly teach, we return home.
It's sometimes hard to see what the lessons are. It's difficult to understand, for example, that children who die at age two may have come here to teach their parents about com- passion and love. Not only may we have diffi- culty understanding what is being taught, we may never know which lessons we're sup- posed to master. It would be impossible to master them all perfectly, and there are undoubtedly some dragons we're not sup- posed to slay this lifetime. Sometimes not slaying them is the lesson. It's easy to look at someone and say, "Oh, it's so sad, he didn't get the lesson of forgivenessbefore he died." But maybe he still learned what he was supposed to. Or perhaps he was presented with oppor- tunities to learn, but chose not to. And who knows? Maybe he wasn't supposed to get the lesson by forgiving. Perhaps you were offered an opportunity to get the lesson of forgiveness by watching him. While we all learn, we also all teach.
When people are buffeted by seemingly endless windstorms and their lives look like calamities, they may wonder why they have been given so many tests, and why God appears to be so merciless. Going through hardship is like being a rock in a tumbler. You're tossed to and fro and get bruised, but you come out more polished and valuable than ever. You are now prepared for even bigger lessons, bigger challenges, and a bigger life. All the nightmares are turned into blessings that become part of living. If we had shielded the Grand Canyon from the windstorms that created it, we would not see the beauty of its carvings. That may be why so many patients have told us that if they could magically go back to the point right before they got their cancer or other life-challenging disease, and erase what was to come, they would not.
In so many ways, loss shows us what is pre- cious, while love teaches us who we are. Rela- tionships remind us of ourselves and provide wondrous opportunities for growth. Fear, anger, guilt, patience, and even time become our greatest teachers. Even in our darkest hours we are growing. It's important that you know who you are in this lifetime. In our growth even our greatest fear, death, becomes less and less. Think about what Michelangelo pointed out: "If life was found to be agree- able, then so should death be. It comes from the hand of the same master." In other words, the same hand that gives us life, happiness, love, and more isn't going to make death a horrible experience. As someone once said, endings are just beginnings backwards.
In the beginning of this book, Michelan- gelo told us that the beautiful sculptures he created were already there, inside the stones. He simply removed the excess to reveal the precious essence that had always been there. You do the same thing as you learn lessons in life: you chip away the excess to reveal the wonder-ful you inside.
Some of our greatest gifts from God may be answered prayers, but for all we know the unanswered ones may also contain gifts. In exploring the lessons from the edge of life, we become more comfortable with the knowl- edge that life ends one day. We also become more aware of life happening now. As we wrote this book, we ourselves continued to learn these lessons. No one has internalized them all; if we had, we would no longer be here. As we all still teach, we all still learn.
It's hard to deal with death before we have to, but it is at the very essence of life. We've asked the dying to be our teachers because we can't experiment with death or experience it ahead of time. We must rely on those who have faced life-challenging illnesses to be our instructors.
People make enormous changes at the very end of their lives. We wrote this book to take the lessons from the edge of life and give them to people who still have lots of time to make changes and to enjoy the results.
One of the most surprising lessons our teachers offer is that life doesn't end with the diagnosis of a life-challenging illness-that's when it truly begins. It begins at this point because when you acknowledge the reality of your death, you also have to acknowledge the reality of your life. You realize that you are still alive, that you have to live your life now, and that you only have this life now. The pri- mary lesson the dying teach us is to live every day to its fullest.
When was the last time you really looked at the sea? Or smelled the morning? Touched a baby's hair? Really tasted and enjoyed food? Walked barefoot in the grass? Looked into the blue sky? These are all experiences that, for all we know, we may never get again. It's always eye-opening to hear the dying say that they just want to see the stars one more time, or to gaze out on the ocean. Many of us live near the ocean but never take the time to look at it. We all live under the stars, but do we look up at the sky? Do we really touch and taste life, do we see and feel the extraordinary, especially in the ordinary?
There is a saying that every time a baby is born, God has decided that the world will con- tinue. In the same way, every day you wake up, you've been given another day of life to expe- rience. When was the last time you fully expe- rienced that day?
You don't get another life like this one. You will never again play this role and experience this life as it's been given to you. You will never again experience the world as in this life, in this set of circumstances in quite this way, with these parents, children, and families. You will never have quite this set of friends again. You will never experience the earth with all its wonders in this time again. Don't wait for one last look at the ocean, the sky, the stars, or a loved one. Go look now.