At the service this past Sunday, we got to hear the words of poet Andrea Gibson:
“I know most people try hard to do good
and find out too late they should have
tried softer.”
Since I first heard the poem a few years ago, I have repeated that mantra to myself: try softer. It applies pretty much everywhere.
For 9 years, I commuted from Olympia to Tacoma several days a week. Driving on I-5 truly can turn the most placid person into a raving maniac, screaming at other drivers, cursing the construction that is ever present, shoulders hunched as you white-knuckle the wheel.
Every so often, I would remember the tactic that a colleague shared with me about how he handled the traffic on the freeways through Chicago. If I-5 seems bad, Chicago freeways are somewhere around horrific, with lanes appearing and disappearing at all the wrong times, and exits that appear in the left hand lanes when you’re all the way to the right intending to get off. I swear they change overnight or in the blink of an eye.
This colleague told me that when he was disturbed by other drivers, he would bless them. Making the sign of the cross flew past him, or maybe even offering a prayer for their happiness as they rode his rear bumper at 65 mph.
Without crowded freeways, I find my need to call forth that practice much reduced, but not totally absent. I continue to coach people about their driving as we approach roundabouts, and as I wait for someone to turn left who cannot find the courage to zip across the lane with a car half a mile away.
And I keep trying to be softer, to love more, to offer blessings all around in my life. I try to take a breath, check my heart, even as the swear words are forming. It’s a selfish practice honestly. My life is happier, my heart more calm when I am able to stay centered.
Where in your life do you need to try softer? Leave a comment and let me know how you make that happen.
As many people who spend time with me know, soft is not an adjective that fits. I do try to be calmer and less in your face, but find as the stress of being evicted from what I believe is my home increases, I become less soft. So I guess my comment is one I often share with drivers and passengers when dealing with rude aggressive drivers – you don’t know what their emergency or whatever is. I wish them to be held in loving kindness like I wish I was being held in loving kindness.
Trying to be more gentle in my efforts to help others has made the last 10 years of my life better. I heard another way to express that suggestion: Don’t try to push the river, either back uphilll or downhill–it will just split and go around you.
From the day of the accident that killed Stan, July 5, 2021, I not only had to “try softer” for my own sanity I had to succeed at the endeavor. When I found out he was struck down by an 81 year old man I said I did not want him to go to jail. After Stan died and the man was charged with vehicular homicide I said I did not want him to go to prison. During my victim impact statement in court (in March) I stated that I did not believe justice would be served by sending an 81 year old man to prison – I bore him no animosity, just a deep sadness for the unfortunate circumstances that intersected our paths. I have lived softly with every decision I made on Stan’s behalf, and my own. Anger would not have served me well in this situation, or many others.
I am working on living softer and being more gentle with
others on the road.I take a deep breath and send blessings
as I keep driving,realizing that each life is sacred.I think animals
know this about living softer.
After my third pneumonia in 2014, which was strep A that made all of my muscles burn like strep throat, I wanted to ski. I asked my PT massage person how to do it. He said, “You will need to ski gently.” I had never skied gently in my life, so that was a very new experience. I was able to ski and enjoyed it so much, even the gentle part. We have to learn new things, all of us!
I’m trying to “try softer” in helping a friend who almost always does not want help. Really I think it makes her feel like I don’t think she is doing a good job or that she is not capable. I’m worried that she is overburdened but I am realizing that being too pushy about helping isn’t helping at all. Offer, then step back and wait. I think this is much better for her. And when we offer to help, it’s more about the person we want to help, right? Not so much about us.