Twenty Cards

Twenty Cards

   There was an interesting exercise by author Claire Bidwell Smith, who's book (titled After This) I had mentioned in the last posting.  While working as both a hospice bereavement and volunteer coordinator, she tried this exercise to give new volunteers and others a sense of empathy with those who were dying, and if you're still healthy, wealthy and wise, you may find this exercise to be quite difficult.  As a matter of fact, even if your not healthy, wealthy or wise, you may find it difficult, for this exercise touches all of us, or will touch all of us.  So here is the exercise...

   She asks you (and I'm paraphrasing here) to fill out 20 notecards.  On each of the first five cards, write down the name (and only one name) of some person or animal close to you (this can be a grandmother or parent or child or spouse or dog...you get the idea).  Now write down five material items that you treasure on the next five cards (again, one item per card), anything from something sentimental to something valuable, say a wedding ring or a picture.  On the next five cards, write down five things or hobbies that you enjoy doing (from hiking to gardening to singing in the shower).  And finally, use the remaining five cards for something quite personal, an event that had great meaning to you (or will have great meaning for you, such as an upcoming celebration or birth).  Okay, you should have 20 cards filled out, each set of five containing one item from the above four categories.  Now arrange all of your cards in an order that you consider the most important to the least important.

   So here's the hard part.  Gradually, as if empathizing with someone who is seriously or terminally ill, give up one or two cards, then another two, then another one or two.  As the cards grow fewer and fewer, have a friend or someone close to you remove a card or two against your wishes, until suddenly you are left with only one card, your most valuable card.  Now, look at that card carefully, think about that card...and give it up.  Gone, everything you valued, everything you treasured, everything you wanted but suddenly realized you could not hold on to.  This is what so many people go through, something that we all will eventually go through.

   Says the author: It was a powerful exercise and one that never failed to remind all of us just how much we hold on to the people and things that we love in our lives, and just how hard it is to give them up...When I think bck on my experience of this exercise both as a participant and as a workshop instructor, I do not have any comforting answers.  To face the end of one's life, or to witness someone else doing so, is deeply painful.  There is so much we are forced to let go of in this process.  The only ease I have found has been in coming back to the practice of mindfulness, or immersing myself in the present moment, of having the best intentions and making the best choices in the here and now.  For the present moment is all that really exists.

   In one way, this was also brought up in a recent issue of Money in an article titled 7 Steps to Total Financial Fitness, a piece presented as a weight-loss/fitness guide, but one for your finances.  Buried along the side notes, after all of their advice, was this ending note:  Put your energy into what really matters...Once you're in good shape moneywise, don't lose sight of why you're working out.  Numerous studies have found that once you have enough income to cover a moderate lifestyle, spending money won't make you happier.  Spending your time well will.  Notes Tampa financial adviser Holly Thomas: "Where you wake up.  The things you do.  The people you spend time with.  These lead to more experiences of happiness than anything you buy."

   As the summer comes to an end, it's interesting to reflect at how the parking lots of hospitals seem to never empty (but often those of rest homes and nursing home do).  Sooner or later, we will all realize what was meant in spending time with others, in doing things for others, in giving to others, even if we struggled to provide for ourselves.  It's something that comes from inside, that giving...and before long (and in many cases, before we even know it), we may well be forced into giving, even giving that last card.