While it’s all too easy to become pessimistic about the world, during the past few weeks, I’ve had the exhilarating experience of interacting with some very remarkable young people whose confidence and vitality were positively infectious.
I’m the last person someone would describe as shy; I enjoy people and enjoy talking with them about their experience of life. So it was that while on vacation in Colorado at a meditation retreat center I met Staci, a 33-year-old woman. As our time together increased, I got to know her. At first glance, I could see that Staci had learned to live with muscular or nerve damage to her face that allowed a twisted half-smile, at best. Despite this, she had become a professor at a noted criminal law college, achieved fluency in Arabic, and was soon to travel to Turkey to deliver a speech on police women in the Middle East. Her courage, enthusiasm and excitement about making a positive difference in the world were inspiring.
No less inspiring, however, than 22-year-old Murray, who was raised in a working class family with a father who was a construction worker. Murray was on the staff of the meditation center, but was leaving within a month to earn some money working on an oil rig platform before a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. Sporting dreadlocks (soon to be cut off in advance of the oil rig gig); Murray further surprised me with his accomplished playing of the bagpipes! This sweet and confident young man was bursting with the joy of life and engagement with the world.
To top it all off, as I waited for the Sonoma Airporter bus at San Francisco Airport, I struck up a conversation with four young lads. Turns out they are Four Musketeers on a mission: to complete a list of 100 things they want to do before they die, and to do it as quickly as possible. In keeping with their mission, their list includes a lot of kind and wonderful things they want to do for other people, like giving away money to strangers and helping other people fulfill their own wishes. Their Web site, theburiedlife.com, documents their progress, and is actually about unburying life, recognizing that we can never accomplish anything unless we are honest about what is important to us and make a concerted effort to achieve it. Once again, I was stunned by their joy and enthusiasm for an awakened life of commitment and meaning. Their hope is to inspire others to make a list and go for it, to awaken the whole world about living a good life in the present.
Being away from newspapers, radio, television, e-mail and the internet for 10 days protected me from the endless onslaught of negativity and fear-mongering that fuels the media’s ability to generate viewers and advertising revenue. Relieved of that usual avalanche of worries, I was instead exposed to an avalanche of confidence, an unbridled love of life that lifted my spirit and opened my heart. Being in the rugged beauty of the Colorado Rockies was wonderful. What really refreshed my soul, though, was not the location or the meditation; it was connecting with the healthy vitality and confidently kind spirit of some simply fabulous young people. Highly recommended!
