The Caring Catalyst

Not Just Another Story

ChuckBehrens — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 12:00:00 +0000

At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.

Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.

The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying “please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.”

Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.

“It doesn’t look like my doll at all,” said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: “my travels have changed me.” the little girl hugged the new doll and brought the doll with her to her happy home.

A year later Kafka died.

Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:

“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”

Embrace the change.
It’s inevitable for growth.
Together we can shift pain into wonder and love,
but it is up to us
to consciously and intentionally
create that connection. . .
(again and again and again and again and again and again and again. . . .)

Photo by ATC Comm Photo on Pexels.com

Be more than just another story. . .
BE THE STORY
the one that never needs a sentence
or forms a paragraph
or uses punctuation
or ends. , ,

TWO POWERFUL WORDS

ChuckBehrens — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 11:00:52 +0000

This 2-Word Quote From Writer

Kurt Vonnegut

Will Change the Way You Work

(and the way Y O U C A R E)

CREDIT: Getty Images

When it comes to insights about work, there are tweaks and there are game changers. Which isn’t to diminish tweaks. Sometimes, the perfect scheduling hack or productivity ritual can radically improve how much you get done.

But no hack or routine will change the fundamental way you view your work — how much satisfaction you get out of it, the way you see your work relating to the rest of your life, the terror you feel about your inadequacies. For that, only wisdom will do.

Helpfully, creativity site 99U recently dug out more than a half dozen gems of just this sort of wisdom, and what’s even better for the time pressed, one of the best of them is only two words long.

PRACTICE BECOMING

It comes from celebrated author Kurt Vonnegut, who penned this succinct nugget of professional wisdom in response to a high school student who was given the assignment of writing his favorite author. Vonnegut’s kind reply included these two powerful words: practice becoming.

If the phrase doesn’t immediately strike you like a thunderclap that’s because Vonnegut’s advice might require a little more explanation. He tells his correspondent:

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on.

That sounds pleasant enough, but why is it so profound? Sure, Vonnegut’s advice jives with scientific research that shows exercising your creativity will make you happy even if you’re terrible at your chosen form of self-expression, but that’s far from the most powerful part of this dead simple but potentially life-changing message.

Like many wise thinkers, Vonnegut recognizes that “success,” if you view it as a single, final destination, will always be out of reach. There will always be someone you can compare yourself to and find yourself wanting. There will always be more to want and more to dream. Instead of working to reach some fixed goal (and planning on finally enjoying yourself then), enjoy the the process of working and living itself, the self-exploration and moment-by-moment accomplishment it gives you.

Or, in other words, you’re always going to be in the process of becoming who you want to be, so you may as well get good at becoming and learn to enjoy it. It’s a powerful message for our endlessly ambitious, angst-filled age.

Looking for more down-to-earth wisdom from Vonnegut? Here’s his letter in its entirety, including a fun “assignment” he gives the young man who reached out. You could give it a try yourself if you want to practice becoming yourself tonight.

EVEN THOUGH THIS WAS
Originally published at www.inc.com. . .

It might as well have been published in a most personal letter from Vonnegut to

Y O U

. . .especially when it comes to

YOU BECOMING

a better

C A R I N G C A T A L Y S T

Wait. . .What?

Does CARING
KINDNESS
LOVE
EMPATHY
ACCEPTANCE

take
PRACTICE BECOMING

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . .

what say YOU?

It’s the only answer that matters. . .

Pssssssssssssssssst:

The answer takes

N O P R A C T I C E

My KENZOKU

ChuckBehrens — Fri, 01 May 2015 11:00:50 +0000

T H E Y

Say if you want a Friend, BE ONE. . . .

T H E Y

know nothing of

K E N Z O K U

It’s a Japanese word which means: “FAMILY.”

It’s a word that describes a relationship, though, it goes well beyond any sharing of actual DNA or genetic codes. It really goes to a deeper heart of the matter of lives lived as comrades from the distant past.

Have you ever had anyone like that in your life? DO YOU, right now?

It’s a relationship where time and distance do nothing to diminish the bond between these types of friends.

Now we’re told by the Psychologists that we can tell you what KENZOKU is, but we can’t be told exactly what

causes

creates

makes it possible. . . .

There’s the usual stuff: Common interests: We both loved basketball, books and music.

History: We both had similar losses, hopes, goals, and commitments.

Equality: We both didn’t need more from each other than the other

I met Joe Nicolella the very first day of 8th grade.

It was the very first day at the 6th new school I was now attending.

We quickly became the Junior Celtics because of not just our love of basketball, but our love of the Boston Celtics. We would play anyone two on two–all day–any season–any weather conditions–and honestly, I don’t remember losing any best of three games.

We read novels THAT WEREN’T ASSIGNED for School: THE GRAPES OF WRATH, Vonnegut, Hemingway, Faulkner, Updike, Wiesel, Bradbury, Cheever, ee cummings, Frost, errr, Shakespeare, well. . . we did disagree on him; I was right, he still sucks, whereas he ended up teaching him for a living.

We inadvertently bought each other harmonicas, pipes (when we thought it made us look much more intellectual than what we were), shared bottles of Mateus while discussing life in front of fires places that haven’t yet gone cold.

Though we didn’t go to college together we in many ways, we ended up doing the same things:

Enriching Others.

He as a teacher and a coach and now a semi-retired high-school athletic director.

Me as a minister, chaplain, speaker/writer.

He’s my friend, uhhh. . .

He’s my father (he’s 96 days older than me), uhhh. . .

He’s whatever I’ve needed in my life, even at times, before I needed it, uhhh. . .

He’s my Kenzoku.

Do you have one?

I have Four in my life, all different than the others, all Continents who have just not made up

My World…

but who thankfully, who have completed it in a most magnificent way. . .

and still do!