Saying Yes to No Regrets

Posted on January 17, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of ancient history
via Creative Commons.

Sometimes I regret the things I do. Far more often I regret the things I don’t do. And so I’ve encouraged myself to say yes to things, even when I think my proverbial plate is full.

I used to have a rule about traveling for work: no more than one week per month; more than that and I would start to feel overwhelmed. But since my first TEDx talk came out two years ago, I’ve been invited to speak in various and far flung places far more frequently than once a month. I do still have my limits, but I’ve stretched them and have found that as long as I stay in the present moment and don’t think ahead (or go over in my mind how many different cities I’ll be in each month), I do fine.

And I try to do the same at home, too, by saying yes to opportunities to adventure more, connect more, and experience more. But when evening rolls around and I’m warm and cozy next to my husband on the couch, it takes a lot to rouse me to adventure. And so in a subtle way I say no quite often. I live at the Institute for Humane Education, which is situated on 28 acres on Patten Bay in coastal Maine. It takes only 10 minutes to walk to the ocean, but I seldom venture out at night, except in summer, even though that’s when I’m most likely to see wildlife, hear owls, and have the chance to marvel at the stars and glimpse a meteor.

Tonight, after dinner, my husband noticed just how bright it was outside. Yesterday was our first snowfall of the season. The full moon was rising and the house cast a shadow on the white snow. I knew this was a night I had to say yes to.

So picture this: every fairy tale, every children’s picture book of woods and meadows under a moonlit night; a world that looks as if diamond dust were strewn upon every inch so that each step becomes a kaleidoscope of sparkles; shadows so distinct that you could cut them out like paper dolls; deep snow, tiring to traverse, the effort keeping you warm on the cold night; the path in the woods, normally wide, now a maze from laden branches bowed down; ducking under spruce boughs so heavy with snow they form caves and igloos; coming back upon the meadow on the return and having it feel like a sports arena at night, blazed with light.

Now imagine how you would feel on such a walk on a moonlit night in winter.

Saying yes to opportunities and adventures, as well as to the discomfort and effort such yeses often bring, is my way of saying yes to awe, love, joy, purpose, and ultimately life. It’s my way of ensuring I live with few regrets.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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The Purpose of Life

Posted on August 20, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of godserv via Creative Commons.

I spent two days at a wonderful conference in honor of the ToDo Institute’s 20th anniversary. Titled Thirty Thousand Days, the conference explored how we can best spend our time on earth (on average 30,000 days). It was a powerful weekend with excellent speakers and fascinating participants, and I was delighted to have been asked to provide a keynote address on making choices in our lives to do the most good and the least harm.

Gregg Krech, the executive director of the ToDo Institute gave several powerful presentations. in one, he shared this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” How different this quote is from what we are often urged to consider as our purpose: our own personal happiness.

As readers of my blog know, I am often bemoaning today’s prevailing purpose of schooling, which is usually something along the lines of preparing students to find jobs and compete in the global economy. Like the concept of personal happiness, this educational goal stresses and focuses on individual personal success. And like the concept of personal happiness, I don’t believe it is enough, which is why I believe that the purpose of schooling ought to be to provide our students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be solutionaries for a peaceful, healthy, and humane world for all people, animals, and the environment.

Of course we want to be happy, and we want our children to be able to support themselves. But Emerson’s quote offers a deeper, more meaningful, more worthy, and ultimately, a more joy-inducing purpose.

Humane education – which seeks to fulfill the higher purpose of schooling described above – may well put Emerson’s quote into practice by educating a generation who will be useful, honorable, and compassionate, and who will make a positive difference in the world.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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This is Our Moment in the Sun

Posted on June 25, 2012 by zoeweil

In the most recent issue of The Sun magazine, there’s an interview with Ran Ortner, an ocean landscape artist. It’s a powerful and thought-provoking interview, and in it Ortner says this: “… we come with an expiration date. We already know we’re going to break down and crash. There’s something liberating about that. This is our moment in the sun. Let’s dance.”

There are countless quotes about life and death; about our mortality; about living life to the fullest, but this one struck me — perhaps because Ortner describes our mortality as liberating. We are free to embrace our moment in the sun largely because it is just that: a moment.

In her poem, “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver ends with this provocative question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?”

Wild and precious. Our moment in the sun. Our time to dance.

What does it mean to dance? What does it mean to plan to do something? To me, this combination of celebrating life (what else is dance but such a celebration?) and planfulness is key to seizing our moment in the sun; the recipe for a life of meaning and purpose and joy. Recognizing our brief moment in the sun and “dancing” our lives is a path toward living in the present moment, fully alive, fully grateful, fully here. And recognizing that there are things to do, things to plan for this brief time offers a path toward meaning and purpose without which the setting sun may come upon us one day and catch us unawares with regret for what we did or didn’t do.

Each of us has a contribution to make, and many of our contributions take time to hone and cultivate, years of preparation and study and hard work. Can we find that balance in which we live fully in the present, fulfilling the plans we make to ensure that to the best of our ability our moment in the sun is worthy of our talents, passions, and dreams? Can we dance with abandon even as we craft the vision of our lives and follow our course steadfastly? There’s no contradiction here; rather we can find in this seeming paradox the liberation I believe Ortner speaks of.

For each wild and precious life,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Helping Students Live Big Lives

Posted on February 15, 2012 by zoeweil

Award-winning educator and educational revolutionary, John Taylor Gatto, wrote in his book, Weapons of Mass Instruction:

“Being a mature being means living with a purpose, your own purpose: it’s about welcoming responsibility as the nourishment a big life needs: it’s about behaving as a good citizen – finding ways to add value to the community in which you live; it’s about wrestling with your weaknesses and developing heart, mind, and spirit – none of them properties of the spectator crowd.”

What I love most about this quote is its underlying call: choose to live a big life.

Living a “big life” doesn’t mean we strive for fame or fortune. It doesn’t mean we need to be the next American Idol. It simple means we live with a purpose that we determine for ourselves and take responsibility for achieving. That’s all. It’s that simple and that meaningful.

Imagine if our schools invited each student to live such a life. Not to get good grades for the sake of those grades (and the college those grades allow them to enter); not to pass No Child Left Behind tests for the sake of moving to the next grade; not to regurgitate memorized equations or dates in history because a teacher said so; but to become mature — meaning, to find our purpose and to be agents of our lives, rather than followers of someone else’s plan for us.

When I imagine schools that invite students to live such a big life, I feel a bit tingly. Can you imagine bored children in such a school? Bullies? The very air would be vibrant with possibilities, each child understanding from the earliest age that their life was so important and sacred that finding and pursuing their purpose and welcoming responsibility as nourishment were their holiest of callings.

Perhaps what I appreciate most about Gatto’s quote is that it blends individualism with community. The call to live one’s own purpose cannot be uncoupled from being a good citizen and a contributor to the community. Together these comprise the big life.

It is possible for schools to achieve this vision. Educating students to be solutionaries for a better world – the purpose that we promote at the Institute for Humane Education and in my TEDx talk – demands that we provide students with the knowledge, tools, and inspiration they need to chart their paths as contributing members of their communities and of our very planet. It invites them to take responsibility as the surest path toward their own freedom, while ensuring that they will chart their course humanely, sustainably, and peacefully. It is a vision for education that provides students with the greatest opportunities to live big lives.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Image courtesy of badkleinkirchheim via Creative Commons.

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Dive Into Darkness to Uncover the Light

Posted on December 15, 2010 by zoeweil

I love December. Amidst the festivities, the sparkling lights and candles to brighten the darkest month, the singing and celebrating, the craft fairs and concerts, the spirit of generosity (albeit too commercialized, but that’s another blog post), the gatherings with friends and family, there is also another opportunity I relish: the opportunity to dive into myself and reflect upon the year that has passed and the new one before me.

At the Institute for Humane Education, January is when we offer our online course, A Better World, A Meaningful Life, based on my book Most Good, Least Harm. We offer this course in January because it’s a perfect way to begin a new year, providing, as it does, the opportunity to reflect upon one’s deepest values, build community with others who want to align their choices and lives more deeply with what is most important to them, and start the year by putting intentions into action. It takes New Year’s resolutions and grounds them in practice.

In the dark of winter, such a course is a wonderful opportunity to introspect, to inquire about what is most important to us and make our goals real in order to live with greater integrity and purpose. We know many people who not only decide to take this course themselves, but give it as a holiday gift to a friend or family member, creating the chance to share themselves, their values, their vision and their dreams with someone they love.

Here’s to the joyful, meaningful lives we can create for ourselves and the humane and healthy world we can build together. Happy holidays!

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

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Life Is Short. Stretch Your Boundaries

Posted on October 20, 2010 by zoeweil

This summer my son started CrossFit training, an intensive workout approach that amazed me. I watched one morning as he and a friend set a timer and for 15 minutes did repetitions of the following:

5 pull-ups
10 push-ups
15 sit-ups

After the 15 minutes were over they’d done 45 pull-ups, 90 push-ups and 135 sit-ups. Let’s just say that on a very good day I can do 3 pull-ups in a row, and normally just 1 or 2.

I decided that I wanted to get in shape like that. So I joined a CrossFit class. I try to go once or twice a week, and then practice on my own another one or two times. I’ve been so sore since starting this a few weeks ago. I’ve also been exhausted. But in 15 minutes, I can now do 60 push-ups and 100 sit-ups and 160 squats, and I know that’s just a start. It feels great to be 49 and getting into such good shape.

Yet my friends who are listening to me moan and groan about how sore I am are rightly asking, “Why would you do that?” It’s funny this desire to do things we may dislike for a higher purpose. I had a goal for myself a few years ago to be able to run the mile up our local 900 foot mountain. It took a summer of practice to achieve this goal, and I still do it periodically, although I dislike every minute of it. So why do I do it? It’s not for the endorphins, because I’m so depleted afterward that it hardly feels like an exerciser’s high. It’s for the sense of accomplishment. It’s for the sense of competence. It’s for the sense of personal strength.

In a previous blog post I wrote about providing students with the opportunity to experience such a sense of accomplishment using their minds. It is not always “fun” to push ourselves to our limits, whether physically or mentally. Almost 30 years ago I began reading the book Godel, Escher, Bach. It stretched my mind far beyond its limits, so much so that after just 1 hour of reading I would fall asleep – a rarity for a non-napper like me. I didn’t make it through the whole book, but I felt fantastic about what I did learn and how I stretched my mind to its capacity, even though it exhausted me.

In answer to my friends who want to know why I’m doing CrossFit, I’m doing it because I want to stretch myself to achieve all of what I’m capable of achieving, physically and mentally. Life is short. I want to reach my potential.

Zoe Weil, author of Most Good, Least Harm

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What’s My Life For? Purpose, Meaning, and the MOGO Principle

Posted on January 16, 2009 by zoeweil

I began Most Good, Least Harm with these sentences: “During my sophomore year in college I embarked upon a quest for inner peace. I yearned for relief from a persistent lack of purpose and meaning in my life.” In my blog posts, I’ve periodically asked, “What is _____ for?” I’ve filled in the blank most recently with “prison” and in a previous post with “education.” The first two sentences of my book carry with them an even bigger underlying question: “What is life for?”

Religion, philosophy, science and people from all corners of the world have sought to answer this question and have come up with a range of answers: enlightenment, to serve God, to love, to give, to successfully reproduce, etc. But I wonder why we even ask this question. Why do we – many of us anyway – feel such a need for purpose and meaning? Why can’t we, like my cat, be perfectly content sleeping 20 hours a day, and playing, eating, and soliciting attention for the remaining four?

I recently watched the Canadian film, Seducing Dr. Lewis, about a tiny, coastal village in Quebec, where most residents are relying on welfare checks for survival.  In order to be eligible for a factory that would employ the villagers, they need to woo a doctor to come live there for five years. It’s a great film, and I highly recommend it, but in the context of this blog post, it’s also telling. The villagers were desperate for work, even for low paying jobs that might not exceed their welfare checks, because they were desperate for purpose and meaning, self worth and inner peace. Unlike my cat, we humans don’t seem content to be served, but must contribute and earn our way to be happy.

The MOGO principle – striving to do the most good and the least harm for ourselves, other people, animals and the environment – is a way to find purpose and meaning; it helps us to discover for ourselves what our particular lives are for.

Last night, I was listening to a recent segment of the radio show, This American Life, which profiled a woman who gave a kidney to a stranger to save his life and who has since dedicated her life to being a matchmaker for kidney donors and kidney recipients. This committed woman has found her purpose and meaning.

When we decide to do the most good and the least harm; when we seek knowledge to enable us to do this; when we introspect and find the confluence between our concerns and our talents; and when we then act on our values, we derive profound purpose and meaning. We, like the villagers in Seducing Dr. Lewis, build self-respect and discover that inner peace often follows.

Funny how finding our purpose and discovering meaning in our lives inevitably contributes to a better world for others, too. The MOGO principle is a good recipe for potential enlightenment, for serving your God, for love, for generosity, and for the survival of generations to follow – in other words, for answering the question, “What’s my life for?”

~ Zoe

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