LIFE LESSONS AND PERSONAL GROWTH

How to guard peace of mind

A photo of sunflowers during a French sunset — Photo by Nikolett Emmert@Pexels

Enter at your own risk.

All day long I’ve closely followed events in Paris.

Unlike the riots that have made headlines in recent days, other news captivated my attention.

I tracked weather conditions there more than I did for my own neighborhood before I blew off a walk to the park and back.

Windy conditions in Paris prompted warnings of debris and broken limbs cracking windshields near the hotel where my favorite team since childhood spent the night after a long flight.

The head coach canceled their scheduled outdoor practice and chose to train inside the hotel facility. He followed NFL protocol and likely heard an earful from the owner and league officials before he made his decision.

Had the head coach directed the team bus to enter the stadium gate today — regardless of gale-force winds — he would have put his players and the franchise in a difficult predicament, especially if anyone got injured due to his failure to listen to the weather report.

A rough start for a squad hoping to win on Sunday.

I hope they deal with the tumultuous beginning and find a way to a happy ending by winning despite the challenges.

Doing so might require quite a lot of resilience, early preparation, and perhaps a couple of breaks in their favor.

Staying glued to any updates online, even from fans broadcasting outside a bistro, I kept abreast of every move to get a sense of what to expect in a day or two.

I completely ignored protests going on in France, mostly because I suspect — though without evidence — outside forces at work to stir up chaos, perhaps even saboteurs entering France just in time for election season.

Where have I seen that kind of thing happen before?

Pick any riot that gets out of hand.

Rather than raise my cortisol levels or allow discordant vibes to invade my inner sanctum, I opted to keep firm boundaries to protect the space between my ears — even if only filled with air or idealistic notions of a better way to live.

Consequently, I handpicked what I clicked to watch, as I’ve done for many years — going back to my days as an educator teaching disadvantaged teenagers who often grew up in homes without a responsible parent.

Orphans.

Foster children.

Jittery knees in the classroom.

Just as I’ve crafted a daily routine that has served me well since retiring, I put a similar plan in place for my students.

At the beginning of the school year, I usually stood guard by the classroom door to ensure students entered with the right demeanor. Once the bell rang, I closed the door on any chaos in the hallway.

Classical music played in the background as students started writing their daily journals — a strategy that fostered peace of mind, at least for the first four minutes of every class.

Research on how to influence human behavior helped me out tremendously through the years — including hours of watching YouTube clips on happiness studies at Harvard and other universities.

Natural light, soft music, and a highly structured schedule made teaching far more enjoyable than having a classroom out of control.

While most students had plenty of food at home, some unfortunate souls opened the refrigerator to empty racks — a mayonnaise jar and a loaf of bread inside the door.

Like a few kids I taught, I, too, had experienced hardship, even if mostly due to my own poor decisions.

During my more rebellious years after flaming out on campus, I had lived near poverty levels in a fraternity house — too stubborn to tuck my tail between my legs, head back home, and admit my failure.

Instead, I bottomed out and later entered the military to turn my life around — hard-won resilience born of human error.

However, if I took a hard look at how I grew up, I could paint the picture either way — either as a child who enjoyed the privileges of a private school or as a kid who broke an arm in Chicago then lost his Mother within a few years.

Hearing the word ‘orphan’ stung a bit, until I grew up, earned a few degrees, and read enough novels by Charles Dickens to get a grip on how many folks have had to overcome difficult situations.

Along the way, I discovered my faith in an ancient text and embraced the idea that some higher power looked out for those facing challenging circumstances — widows without a man around and children without a parent.

Today, when I studied my daily verse to grasp the gist of the passage, I honed in on the idea of protected spaces — the constant vigilance required to guard what enters the mind.

I quickly drew a comparison to how I’ve intentionally constructed a routine to maximize peace of mind — probably to offset the difficulties encountered during early childhood, particularly that poignant moment in First Grade when the tall Benedictine nun pulled me outside the classroom door to break the news.

“Your Mother’s dead.”

Impossible to erase the past, rewind and start all over, or simply tune out the facts as I did with riots in France or other headline drama, I’ve learned how to reframe the hardship and find a way forward, despite the misfortune of a bad break.

As I watch from a safe distance while two football teams prepare for whatever Sunday brings their way in Paris, I, at least, know that the winner will have demonstrated the grit necessary to overcome an obstacle.

Meanwhile, I’ve already proven that I’ve passed that test long ago, though I got plenty of help from an invisible hand — or so I’d like to think.

How have you curated what enters your life to protect sacred spaces?

enter — bo

A primitive root; to go or come — enter, invade, pull in, take.

Source: KJV Proverbs 23:1–35 (10.1)

“Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless.”

Entering Protected Spaces was originally published in ILLUMINATION on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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Entering Protected Spaces