Mohandas Gandhi once remarked that,
“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”
I am not Hindu nor am I an expert on Gandhi. I have hijacked this quote…this thought…out of context…as it seems to capture what I have learned and continue to live. The good, the bad, and the ugly of a life journey of striving to be Just Man Enough.
Gandhi was focused on giving humanity some kind of guidance…..seeking, I am sure, to assist people in connecting spirituality towards realizing greater enlightenment. Okay, getting a bit too serious? Stay with me, there will be moments of light and fun…lol. After all, don’t some of the funniest observations originate from personal and painful experiences? I think Gandhi was trying to teach or demonstrate that needed change must always begin within the individual. I can personally verify this truth. My journey to become “Just Man Enough” is just that, my story…my journey. Will it lead to any greater social or political change? Could it spark a change in you? I cannot say….I can say that I understand what Gandhi was trying to share. What he shared was in the most meaningful ways, similar to what Jesus and Dr. Martin Luther King were trying to share.
My friend Jeremy Lentz, “The Imperfect Man”, by his own description….has helped me to understand that we are perfect in our imperfection….in our simplicity….in our striving….learning from our mistakes and building upon even the most modest of successes. We all have something to offer. But what are we building, if anything?! Do we need to “build”? Building, in the material transactional world, is considered by many to be the definition of success? However, I believe that “success” is relative and is held or can be “achieved” differently by each of us. My friend Jeremy just wants to be the best father he can be and he is becoming the product of that thought. Me?! Well, I concede that I have failed more than I have succeeded in life….I guess most of us do? And as embarrassing as it is to admit, it has taken me that same lifetime to truly understand and embrace that only by failure do we learn.
Yes, I have come to embrace that fundamental understanding that failing is how we learn….how we adapt…how we grow. In fact many of us, myself included, have become conditioned to find something or someone else to blame for those failures…”if only this then that”….for me it was that my father chose not to be my father and as a result being left to a mother who had no business being anyone’s mother. I overcame such thoughts by learning and subsequently accepting the truth that they were damaged people who were damaged by the same people they were supposed to be able to count on….a pattern…..not evil…just a chain of the damaged, linked by pain and ultimately practicing the same learned coping and co-dependent behaviors. I took the time to learn the why and the how of their damage…of their struggles…..and in turn, I learned to forgive, although forgetting continues to be a lifetime struggle. As a result of this enlightenment, each day is now better….because I fill the bad with greater good…the hurt with more happiness…the pain of regret with the strength of love. So it is, that what I do not have, may be attributed to what they were or were not or what they were or were not strong enough to be. What I have become…..who I am…..what I have…no matter what…is connected to them….forever. Dizzy yet…lol?! Like my friend, Jeremy, I too am an “Imperfect Man”…the sum of my experiences…..I no longer allow my life to be defined by the negative experiences and as a result, this journey is my perpetual and nobly driven mission to be “Just Man Enough”.
I am hoping that by choosing to look in on my thoughts and experiences we might just “figure it all out” or at least come closer….”to making sense of it”…together? I hope to influence or persuade you to laugh, think, question, discover, reveal, enlighten and connect with your best self and the world around you. Most of all I hope to inspire you to become the product of your best thoughts ultimately growing to be the human being you were meant to be.
Peace out,
Dave