There are two habits that contribute a great deal to my overall happiness. One is to listen very careful to the INTENT of someone who is speaking. The other is not to get too tied up in semantics. I belong to a very active online community based on the craft of knitting. Not surprisingly, most of its members are women. In that context, this comment was recently posted in one of the forums:
Okay. Here it is, the 21st century. I’m an adult female human being. I’m a woman, dammit, not a girl, or a gal (whatever that is). I’m a lady only in certain social situations. Outside those very particular situations, I’m a woman. And so are my colleagues and compatriots who are also adult female human beings. Dammit.
This rant is brought on by hearing adult women calling each other “girls” or “gals” or “ladies.” Girls wear little green uniforms and sell cookies. I don’t know what gals are. Ladies are women of a particular social class, in situations where social class matters. And my life in general involves neither cookies nor situations where social class matters. Whether we’re born to silk or to scraps, we’re all here to do the same thing: make the world a better place for everyone.
A female human being old enough to work or vote isn’t a girl, she’s a woman. Women of college age are women. Women of retirement age are women. It’s what we are. Let’s call ourselves what we are, instead of what we’re not. What we are is adult human beings, responsible for our own thoughts and actions. Women.
She is right: we are women. And we are also people. And as such we can think objectively, if we care to. This is where listening comes in. Real listening means attending to not only the words of the speaker but the other cues as well. Tone, body language, word choice and context are just a few of the cues we can use to take meaning from a speaker. Using these skills, we register the words of the speaker on a more than intellectual level. We actually feel what is behind the words, whatever that might be.
I come from a place where a woman calling another woman “Honey” is meant to indicate that they are open to their feelings. As in, “Oh, Honey, I’m so sorry!” Women who bristle and complain that they are not somebody’s “Honey” are reacting to the word as if it were delivered in an entirely diffferent context. not realizing that the word choice in this scenario is almost irrelevant. Many words would do, because the real message is the What we hear is the sense of tenderness, intimacy and genuine empathy. “Lady” is also used in my community to indicate that the person we are speaking to is recognized as being a mature, evolved and socially aware person of the female gender. I often use “ladies” in tandem with “gentlemen” to indicate that I respect these qualities in the people I’m addressing. Immature, self-involved or irresponsible people never earn these terms from me, although I am often willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I have also been involved in organizations where “Yes, Ma’am” or “Yes Sir” indicates a respect for the instructions of whoever delivers them. It also indicates that I will give the matter my immediate attention. Gender, in this context, is irrelevant.
As for “girls” I don’t appreciate hearing that from men, because it’s diminutive. It sounds like I’m supposed to be small, passive and child-like. But when my women friends refer to the ‘girls’ it sounds fun to me, because in our situation we are women, but we also allow our playful sides out to get silly. Good female friendships are like that. At the risk of sounding patronizing, I actually feel for people who can’t share that experience.
Anyway, my point is that we need to take it from the point of view of the speaker. Why did that person pick the particular term or phrase? Do they use the corresponding male term as well? Really, it’s the intent, what’s behind the term, that matters. And, as women, we should be strong enough to say, calmly and firmly, when we prefer people not to use certain terms. No anger, no judging, just an assertion of what is OK with us and what is not. Followed by a good natured smile that says “It isn’t personal, I just want you to respect my needs.” No drama. I find this approach to be more informative for the name-caller, more effective in getting them to stop, and far better for me as I don’t have to live with judgement and resentment. Win-Win-Win. Those are good words, too.
Last night I had the distinct pleasure of hearing 
The day came when the tiger was to be released into his wonderful new home. The committee watched in amazement as he stepped from his cage and immediately began to pace back and forth in a small area of his new space. Finally it dawned on them: the tiger had learned to pace back and forth in order to comfort himself. Faced with a new environment, his need for comfort was just as great as it had been in the cage. 
Monastic life, she said, is often viewed as a sheltered environment free from these every day stresses. But she was very clear that it is quite the opposite. Monastic life only frees us from our means of escape (media, intoxicants, “busy-ness,” sex etc.). In this environment we have to deal directly with our own “stuff.” We have to face up to our habitual patterns and the way they determine our reality. In the monastery we cannot hide, as its day to day life emphasizes an active practice of being “awake.” This wakefulness draws attention to our habits and teaches us to handle them as they arise. It also makes us more forgiving of these habits, both in ourselves and others.
“OK”, you’re saying, “So what happened to the tiger?” The tiger, apparently, did eventually venture out into its new space. In his natural wisdom, he let go of his habits and freed himself. People, however, are far more cerebral. We create cages in our own minds through our habitual patterns and our “busi-ness.” We often forget to give space to just being awake and aware of the precious life around us. So here’s my question to you: What do you do to free yourself of your own caged, pacing mind? Like the tiger, what can you do, what DO you do, to discover this amazing and beautiful world we live in?
As a fan of the official “Arts & Crafts” movement of the early 20th century, I see craft as the act of building something homemade, low-tech and functional. Crafts people, traditionally, have fit this bill: blacksmiths, cabinet makers, shoemakers, weavers etc. Crafters possessed finely honed skills, and communities depended on them. Extremely skilled crafts people might have been blessed with the title “artisan.” These people were seen as approaching the “artists,” who were, in turn, the people (men, I should say) who painted cathedral ceilings. The term “high art” was reserved for the purely visual arts, of course. By these definitions, tole painting and its like are totally not in the game. Enter the word “hobby.”
OK. We have all the words on the table, so let’s go back to art. My mate argues that art must transcend a celebration of the day-to-day and tell a story. He claims that too much of what we describe as art is merely chronicalling life. He calls this archivism rather than art. When we look at breathtakingly beautiful pictures of flowers or scenery or even design, he acknowledges its beauty, but remains unmoved. I, on the other hand, am more emotional, an experience of extreme beauty can bring me to tears. I fall into beauty and let it wrap itself around me. It is one of the great pleasures of life.
An old friend of mine has been studying with a very famous photographer. He’s been producing some very technically impressive photographs, definitely magazine worthy. Indeed, you just need to look at them to appreciate the skill and craft involved. He knows he has moved well beyong a mere hobby, and, believes, not surprisingly, that he is now an artist. But here’s the problem for me: I admire his skill, but his images leave me unmoved. Like Brian, I see skilled chronicalling. It’s like looking at yet another cookie cutter Hollywood movie star. Yeah, yeah – they’re structurally perfect. No argument. But they do not SPEAK to me. They tell no stories and they’re beauty doesn’t change me. 
So perhaps you sense how this fits into The Brightness of Being. To live well, I determined, was to take the time to slow down and really allow time for things that would move and change me to do their work. Enter the need to determine what I wanted and what I did not. (And small, pattern oriented human animal that I am, I needed definitions.) I walked around the house and touched things. I touched books that really weren’t worth reading, “cute” ornaments with no artistic (or even much sentimental) value, funny gifts that resources should not have been wasted on, piles and piles of mass produced “stuff” that did little but comfort my materialistic leanings. Where was the skill, the craft, the art? The truly artistic, truly meaningful items were overwhelmed by it all. As I held a copy of Michael Ondaatje’s Divisidero in my hands, I thought “Why do I waste my precious life attending to all this crap, when there is art like this? Should I not take the time to savour this experience?”
Do you believe these distinctions are something we would all do well to consider? To coin a cliché, “Less is More.” Do you need to unclutter your life to touch this richness of experience? How do you define what are meaningful stimuli and what merely pretty distractions? What can we all do to honor the artistic feast that surrounds our precious lives?
You know, life can be pretty crappy. People cut us off in traffic, treat us like dirt, get sick and die. We screw up, fall down, lose our tempers and find we just don’t have the money to do what we want. We feel confused, angry, hurt, and often we just don’t understand why it all has to happen. More to the point, why does it have to happen to us? 
I’m not saying this because I’m a naturally chipper little PollyAnna who doesn’t know the first thing about suffering. That darkness I mentioned? I’ve lived it. Life has dealt me some hard blows. Really hard. There have been, and will continue to be, times when I want to hurt someone for the injustices they’ve inflicted on others (including me). That I wanted to rage at the sky or dig myself into a big hole and never come out. But those times are very rare, and they’re getting rarer all the time. And the little stuff? The jerk who cuts me off in traffic, the ungrateful sod who faults me for my offer of help, the flooded basement, or the broken vase that belonged to a beloved relative? Those things have become more than manageable. 
OK. Maybe you’re growling at me right now and thinking “friggin perky person!” Maybe you think this sounds idealistic and silly. Maybe you’ve been legitimately wronged. Maybe someone you love is ill or dying. Maybe you are. Maybe you think that your problems are too big for such a simplistic solution. But they’re not. Chances are, your feelings are about something that happened in the past, something you anticipate happening in the future, or someone who you really have no control over. What you do have control over is right now. Right this minute. Always, you have this one precious minute, and in this minute you can allow yourself to feel grateful. 
So the next time you feel angry, the next time you feel sad, the next time you feel unsafe, take a little time to focus on the amazing things you have in your life. Even better, do this every day, at least once, for no reason at all. (Personally, I like to do it before I go to sleep. Often I do it before a meal. ) Remember that accidents happen, that people get sick and die because it’s part of life, and immerse yourself in the feeling of gratitude. Right here, right now, today. Because really, today is where we are. Today is what we’ve got. And it’s worth a hell of a lot.