During my undergraduate studies I had an Educational Psychology professor who was well-loved by the students despite being hokey. He claimed that hokiness from being raised on a Kansas. His theme song for his childhood was John Denver’s song, Matthew:
Yes, and joy was just the thing he was raised on
Love is just the way to live and die
Gold is just a windy Kansas wheat field
And blue is just a Kansas summer sky
That, said Paul Welter, was the foundation of his life.
One of Welter’s most popular lectures was on the “hats” people wear. He would state we all wear “hats” that we constantly change depending on the situations we are in and the people that we are with. In those cases, we wear the hat that fits. I suppose the point was that as individuals we are fluid. Fluid in the sense that we have many different roles and identities that make us who we are. That we play roles. He would go through the lecture and then drop the “big” question—which hat is really you?
That is a “big” question and even in my “golden years”, I’m not sure I can answer that question any more definitively than I could back then when he first posed the question. The fact is that life is a journey and none of us are where we started—at least I hope not. We have all grown . . . changed . . . evolved. That is the goal of life. To discover who we were created to be and then become the best “me” we can be. That’s a journey . . . a trip. For me, quoting the Grateful Dead, “What a long, strange trip it has been.”
Everything on our journey pieces together to make us who we are. The words we hear spoken. The people we encounter. The music we listen to. The spirituality we explore, embrace, and leave behind. The movies we watch. The books we read. The politics we embrace and rail against. The religions we explore. The education we seek. The relatives we encounter, idolized, ignored, and despised. The cultures in which we live and lived. The ethnocentricities around us. The landscape we grew up in and live in. The peace and the war. The tension and the calm. Everything pieces together like some cosmic puzzle to mold and shape us into who we are . . . and it is a journey.
It is a journey of a million, billion steps and decisions with each discovery we encounter. Robert Frost equates it to being a journey through the woods upon which he comes to a fork in the road. At that point a choice must be made . . . a decision made. That is life—constant choices . . . constant decisions. In that the difference is made proclaims Frost. The wise old Yankee, Yogi Berra, said that when you come to a fork in the road, take it. That is life—a journey of discovery.
Now it may look and feel like there has been a map that laid the journey before us, but reality and experience tell us differently. We may think it is all pre-ordained by God . . . that God has it all planned out, step-by-step, but it is not! Nope. God leaves that up to us knowing that we are going somewhere. Somewhere that is up to us . . . that is closer to being who we are. God believes in us. Maybe we should too.
The choices and decisions are up to us. We pick and choose. But with which “hat” do we do this picking and choosing? Trust me, the “hats” influence us. They truly do.
The goal of my journey has always been to be who I was created to be. To be perfect in who I am. Of course, in popular faith stances—Christianity in particular—that is practically a blasphemous statement. Only Christ was perfect. Yet that is what Jesus calls us to be—ourselves. In being ourselves with all our strengths and weaknesses, good and bad points . . . who we are. And then accepting ourselves as we are. If we can master that, we can master perfection. Didn’t William Shakespeare say, “This above all: to thine own self be true . . .”
That is the goal. It begins with us. Discovering who we are. Learning to love ourselves—all of who we are. We begin there. If we cannot love ourselves, then how can we ever love another?
That is the problem in my estimation, with the world today. It doesn’t seem as if too many people love themselves. Just take a gander at the world we live in—watch the news on television, listen to the radio, read the newspapers, cruise the Internet and social media. Sure doesn’t seem like a warm cozy place we are living in. No, far from it. People need to learn how to love themselves so that they love others.
Which
means we need to make the journey. As we
make the journey we need to realize that it is a “long strange trip” with lots
of forks in the road calling for choices and decisions. Choices weighed upon discernment and for no
better word—prayer. We need to weigh the
voices and experiences of the past as they pull and push us. Discern the “truth
as we know and understand it. Someone once said that the “truth will set you
free.”
Self-discovery. Self-love. It all leads to how we love ourselves and love others. Anything less is to pay a heavy price. This I have learned through the years. It is a heavy price. It could cost us our souls.
As individuals and as a group we must figure out which “hat” truly represents us . . . that says who we are. I am still working towards discovering that “hat” that says “me”. Still wading through them all, but I can honestly state that I have fewer hats than I used to have. I am getting closer. I guess I always knew what Dr. Welter was getting at, but I just wasn’t ready to give up my “hats”. They were comfortable. But life is not always about being comfortable . . . sometimes it is about wearing something new, different, and real. They say that hindsight is 20/20! “Love is just a way to live and die.” That’s a hat I think we could all wear.
How’s your hat collection?
