The R Word
At my workplace, I work with adult learners. They joke a lot about “the R word,” or reflection. In many of their classes, they are asked to reflect on ideas. They write reflective papers. They complete reflective essays in tests. They’re big on reflection. Personally, I don’t think reflection is so bad, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in school and asked to reflect on things.
Since we are a Lutheran school, we have voluntary chapel as a service for our adult learners, should they choose to take advantage of it. I’m not Lutheran at all, but I attend chapel on the days I work, so that I’m supporting a service for our students. (Most of the time there’s only three or four of us present, including the person who is leading.) Today, the service leader handed out Buddhist quotes to us and asked us to, using that darn R word again, reflect between each reading. He tried to match our quotes to our personalities. Here was mine:
Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed. — Buddha
Now, I’ve met this very nice gentleman once. But man, has he got me pegged. I can be a little rigid at times. (Okay a lot rigid. A lot of the time.) I think part of it’s personality, part of it’s upbringing, part of it’s just habit. Whatever the motivation, I can be very shielded with people I don’t know, and sometimes with people I do know.
My rigidity is something that I work on in my writing, for sure.. I always think that I am being so vulnerable and unguarded in my writing, and I’m really just shielding what I really feel with language. I often confuse thinking through an emotional issue and feeling through it. I’m so much more comfortable with my intellect’s capacity to connect than my heart.
I guess that this is something that I have come to know about myself and accept as one of my opportunities for growth. I just didn’t realize that it was so apparent to the outside world. So today, I want to just reflect (there’s that R word again) on this quote and wonder at the ways I can open myself to the world.
9to5poet
good job reflecting! (seriously–congrats! i thought this was open and vulnerable and you got me peggged too!)