Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

To Turn Again

by | Dec 22, 2011 | | 0 Comments

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice.

— T.S. Eliot

It’s dark. Really dark. And cold.

The sun, even when it comes up here in the northeast, skitters across the horizon. And disappears.

Yet, this week, we celebrate the light.

It is the turning point.

From the very earliest of times, before tribe or tradition, we have confronted the darkness with trepidation – the darkness of the night, the darkness of our souls – and railed against it. Through liturgy and ritual and celebration, we connected with the ancient rhythms of the earth to welcome light – and hope – back into the world.

For a fraction of a moment this week, the earth will stop – and shift on its axis – and turn again toward the sun.

It is the turning point.

In the busyness of our frantic, teched-out lives, we can miss this moment. It is easy to forget why we run around and string lights and light candles and wrap presents and gather together – and in the process end up empty and depleted and sad. It is easy to forget why we celebrate.

We celebrate the light. We celebrate in the deep knowing that the light always returns. We celebrate that the light always triumphs over the darkness.

Take a moment to stop this week. Reconnect with the ground – and with the Ground of All Being. Feel the earth turn back to the sun, back to the light.

It is the turning point.

Then decide.

What will you turn toward in the days and months ahead? What light will you discover in your life? What light will you shine in the lives of others?

Be that light.

And celebrate.

It is the turning point.

 

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Take The Easy Way Out

by | Dec 8, 2011 | , , | 0 Comments

I was out on the rock face at about 11,000′ enjoying the view. The climbing was fairly straightforward, and flowed easily, even though I didn’t know the way.

My climbing partner was 100 yards below me and to my left in a narrow cleft.  He was trying a different approach and it wasn’t going well. I could hear him grunt… and swear from time to time. And occasionally I’d hear the scatter of rockfall.

After nearly 45 minutes of struggle, my partner emerged below me, conceding at last that the route that I was on was the right one.

I’ve thought of this scene countless times over the years. Usually, when we’re trying too hard – whether in the mountains or in life – we’re off route.

The right way is not always without difficulty. But there is a natural flow and unfolding when we’re on the path we should be on.

“We are rather like whirlpools in the river of life,” writes Charlotte Joko Beck. “In flowing forward, a river or stream may hit rocks, branches, or irregularities in the ground, causing whirlpools to spring up spontaneously here and there. water entering one whirlpool quickly passes through and rejoins the river, eventually joining another whirlpool and moving on. Though for short periods it seems to be a distinguishable as a separate event, the water in the whirlpools is just the river itself.”

Suffering, Joko Beck suggests, arises when we pretend that we are not the river; or when we wall off and dam up our own small eddies.

I think suffering arises when we paddle up stream.

Years ago, I took my boys to Disney’s Blizzard Beach. Encircling the outside of the park is a “ride,” a gently flowing river. You sit in an inner tube – and float along.

I’m not very good at Blizzard Beach. I get antsy. I want to paddle. Maybe even change direction. If there were Blizzard Beach police, I might go to jail.

Many of us like to pretend we’re in control. That we own the river. That through cleverness and craft, we can navigate and forge the way. Maybe even force the way.

But constant paddling saps the spirit and tires the soul.

Dan Millman writes, “Surrender involves getting out of our own way and living in accord with a higher will, expressed as the wisdom of the heart.”

What if we didn’t have to struggle?

What if we could trust the river, surrendering to the Great Flow of our lives?

What if the easy way was The Way?

 

 

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Mind Matters

by | Dec 1, 2011 | , | 0 Comments

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you‘re right.

— Henry Ford

“It’s not my fault.”

Parents, how many times have you heard that one?

As a defense attorney, I’ve heard it countless times.

It’s a pervasive cry across our societal landscape; a pandemic failure of individual responsibility.

It’s easier to blame someone else for a problem than to brainstorm a solution. It’s easier to complain about politics than to get involved in the process. It’s easier to complain about economic inequality, than to innovate and risk.

“It’s not your fault,” wrote Linda Bacon in her 2008 book Health at Every Size explaining why diets fail.

Biology trumps will, she said. It’s the genes that make you fat. (And yes, those jeans probably don’t help.)

But I’ve got some bad news. Or maybe it’s good?

There’s “startling new research” that suggests an astounding proposition:

Will power matters. How we set our mind, how we think, actually affects outcome.

In their book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, reviewed this past week in The New York Times, Standford professors Greg Walton and Carol Dweck establish convincingly that those who believe in the strength of will are far more likely to overcome life’s challenges than those who believe that will power is a limited and exhaustible resource.

We actually have the capacity to will our way to success. If we believe we can, we much more likely will.

Now, of course, this is not exactly new.

Will has been around since man first roamed the Garden.

In every moment, we get to exercise our will. In every moment, we get to choose.

We can choose to be angry at the telemarketer; or grateful that we have a phone. We can choose to be frustrated by the line at the register; or grateful that we have the resources to shop. We can choose to be depressed about the economy; or grateful that we live in a free society.

To be sure, the exercise of will is not always easy.

I know this all too well: going out the door on a dark morning run in the rain; or going to the gym on a cold winter’s afternoon; or when I face an unpleasant battle in the courtroom.

I know too from my experiences in mountaineering and distance running that my body has the capacity to push far beyond what my mind thinks it’s capable of; that a failure of will is far more likely than a failure of strength.

Victor Frankl, in his shattering death camp memoir, reminds us though that even in the most desperate of circumstances, we have the power to choose how we will be.

Happiness is a choice, says Gretchen Rubin. And Joel Osteen reminds us of our our capacity – and our obligation – each day – to choose joy.

The exercise of will – our power to choose – is our greatest gift.

May we use it well.

 

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One Hand Clapping

by | Nov 24, 2011 | , | 2 Comments

Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?

— A Zen Kōan

It was 4:00 p.m. It was snowing. And thundering. And lightening.

I stood on the summit of the highest point in the Western Hemisphere.

I could look out about 100 feet and see shadows of the great South Face of Aconcagua swirling in the mist. But there was not another soul for miles – and thousands of vertical feet.

Our group had started out nearly three weeks earlier. Storms had delayed our progress. And ferocious winds had battered us up high for days. The team was exhausted. Our numbers had dwindled. And morale was low.

On the last possible summit day, I dug deep into my reserves, climbing solo into the teeth of an oncoming storm, to achieve the goal that had alluded me just two years before.

But it was bittersweet.

Because I was alone.

Nearly a dozen years later, on a crystal clear windless night, under the Alaskan midnight sun, I summitted Denali.

Climbing Denali had been a dream I had held in my heart for nearly 40 years.  I had attempted it twice before – and failed.

As I stood on the summit that night, I looked down at spot just 700′ below me where I had wept tears of sadness and frustration the year before, across the famed Archdeacon’s Tower, down toward Denali Pass. I could see the glistening river of the Kahiltna glacier stretching for miles in the falling shadows and the vastness of the Alaska Range spread before me. I looked across the years, the decades of this dream. And felt such joy.

Standing next to me was my wife.

Last week, in a beautiful and thought-provoking comment to my post “Selfish Dreams,” my friend Audrey wrote: “It wasn’t very long that Adam walked the earth before the Creator decided that Adam needed a partner. We are created to live in community and to care for each other.”

Success coach Sharon Hess, in another poignant comment said, “You simply cannot give to another what you don’t have yourself.”

I know this to be true.

And I also know that we are called to give what we have; that in discovering how to feed ourselves, we must feed each other; that in living out the longings of our heart, we must share our gifts, our love, our joy.

I also know that dreams fulfilled feel doubly full when shared with those we love.

And that the view from the top is twice as good.

Mother Teresa once said, “Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”

As we enter into this season of joy, how can we  share our dreams and our gifts with those we love?

 

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Selfish Dreams

by | Nov 17, 2011 | , | 4 Comments

“I have a bone to pick with you.”

I had been stuffing my laptop back into its bag after the talk. I turned around and stared at the well-dressed gentleman in his mid-fifties. He had been in the audience on the right. His eyes drilled into me.

“Following your dreams is selfish,” said the man.

I had been speaking to a group of entrepreneurs and business folks about my new book, Journeys on the Edge: Living a Life That Matters. Its overarching message: live your dreams before the clock runs out. In my talk, I say that our dreams are the engines of our hearts.; that they reflect the essence of who we are; that we must live our dreams if we are to live at all.

“Well, I must respectfully disagree with you,” I said.

I was about to say that, if we are to live fully, deeply and well, we must pursue what brings us joy; that when we live in joy, we bring our best selves to the world. I was about to say that, in order to serve others well, we must first be whole and complete in ourselves.

But before I could get another word out, the man asked, “What about Beck Weathers? Weathers nearly died! Think of the hardship he caused his family, all because he dreamed of climbing Everest! How selfish can you be?”

Weathers, a pathologist, was involved in the ill-fated 1996 Everest debacle.  Left for dead after a brutal storm high on the mountain, Weathers staggered back to high camp and was later airlifted in a daring high-altitude helicopter rescue. He lost his nose and parts of both feet.

I told my listener that the Weathers accident was unfortunate.

I wanted to tell him about my friend Chris whose life slipped away in my arms after a head-on motor vehicle accident on an ordinary Sunday afternoon on a clear stretch of road not far from where I live. I wanted to share with him the story that Joan Dideon tells about how her husband died as they sat down to dinner. “Life changes in an instant, in an ordinary instant,” she says. (And it does.)

I wanted to tell him that we cannot give what we do not have; that in order to share the fullness of life, we must first know the abundance of life; that in order to share joy, we must find joy; that in order to give love, we must first love ourselves; that in order to reflect peace, we must first know it in our hearts.

I wanted to tell him that life is short; that life is risky. But that even in the face of risk, we are challenged – indeed we are called – to make our lives extraordinary.

And to be extraordinary means expressing – and, yes, sharing  – the very core of who we are in the world. Without compromise.

He was in a hurry though. He said his piece. And off he went.

 

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