Write Your Own Mission Statement

I’ve been adrift. Like a battered old rowboat, I allowed myself to be tossed about on the sea of life. I needed an anchor and something to remind me what floats my boat. With the help of several resources, I wrote a personal mission statement.

I am nothing short of shocked how a simple mission statement is helping me do everything with more confidence, clarity and inner peace. Every decision is easier. Life is easier.

Writing an effective mission statement can take time, but Laurie Beth Jones offers a helpful formula in her book The Path: Creating a Mission Statement for Work and for Life. This is certainly not the only way to write a mission statement, but it is an excellent way to get started. The idea is to fill in the missing blanks to create your personal mission statement.

My mission is to
_______________, ______________, and _________________
(your three verbs)
______________________________
(your core value or values)
for (to or with)
_______________________
(the group/cause which most moves/excites you)

Let’s look at an example. A woman Jones worked with initially said her mission was to raise a happy family. Sounds good, right? Wrong. This mission requires her family members to be happy, which isn’t within the woman’s control. The only thing she controls are her own values and actions. While a mission should benefit others, the hard truth is that the people in her family could leave her. If that should happen, she can and must continue with her mission.

Using Jones’ formula, here’s how that dedicated mom re-wrote her mission statement: My mission is to create, nurture, and maintain an environment of growth, challenge, and unlimited potential for all those around me.

Now it’s your turn. First, consider what is most important to you. These are your core values. Next, consider the talents you have that could help you move your core values into action. These are your verbs. Now, think about who will benefit from your mission and why. Finally, put it all together to write your mission statement. Shuffle it around, sleep on it, keep at it until it feels right.

Your personal mission statement should be broad enough to help you create a clear vision for all areas of life. When changing tides, unsettling ripples or tsumani-sized waves rock your boat, your personal mission statement allows you to stay steady, strong and unsinkable.

Make this Your Season to Bloom

Tomorrow is officially the first day of spring, and there is no better time to make this our season to bloom. Poet Anais Nin offered us her own encouragement when she wrote, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Merriam Webster defines the verb bloom as a time or season to mature into achievement of one’s potential; to flourish in beauty, freshness or excellence; to shine or glow. Does the idea of coming into full bloom feel too risky, vulnerable, difficult or even silly? Imagine if the daffodils and daisies had such thoughts!

Here are ten little seeds we can plant in our minds to help us bloom like flowers in springtime.

1. Be aware. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.” Take time to contemplate tiny green leaves budding on trees and flower petals unfurling. If we train our eyes to see beauty blooming all around us, we will likely be inspired to do the same.

2. Be amazed. For months, a small bulb lies dormant deep in the ground. One early spring day, a thin green stem pushes through the cold hard dirt. Soon a bulging spathe forms at the top of the stem containing a host of flower parts that miraculously bloom into an unbelievably perfect yellow daffodil. The Buddha said, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change.”

3. Be yourself. A daisy doesn’t yearn to be a rose. A rose doesn’t envy a tulip. Blooming requires us to think about who we are and what we were created to be. Author Cheryl Strayed wrote, “Transformation doesn’t ask that you stop being you. It demands that you find a way back to the authenticity and strength that’s already inside of you. You only have to bloom.”

4. Be ready. Don’t wait around for the perfect growing conditions to come into full bloom. “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all,” said Walt Disney. If a wildflower can grow through a crack in a concrete sidewalk, we can surely bloom wherever we are planted.

5. Be joyful. Just as flowers brighten someone’s day, so can we. French essayist Joseph Joubert said, “Politeness is the flower of humanity.” Simply being cheerful and kind can bring joy to everyone we encounter. Having a joyful demeanor is a habit that just takes a little practice.

6. Be hardy. A delicate yet tenacious flower can survive downpours and droughts. Flowers get trampled on by thoughtless feet and paws. Have you ever watered wilted flowers and watched them magically revive? Like resilient flowers, we can resolve to keep blooming even when everything isn’t coming up roses.

7. Be colorful. Flowers bloom in such beautiful colors! Bringing these colors into our clothing and surroundings can add happiness to our everyday lives. In her book Choosing Happiness Alexandra Stoddard wrote, “What brings me great joy is to surround myself with nature, to select colors that have happy associations with the beauty I experience on a spring day when the sun shines, highlighting the world’s freshness and luminescence.”

8. Be relaxed. Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin…” Each and every flower, like each and every one of us, was wonderfully made. There’s no use in worrying and fretting about life. Rather than being anxious, we can relax into who we are and bloom naturally like the flowers.

9. Be caring. Master gardeners plan, prune, weed, fertilize and lovingly care for their plants and flowers. “People are like flowers. Some need only a little tending to, and who knows what kind of beautiful blooms may burst forth,” said writer Meredith Barron. In order to bloom, we must take time to care for ourselves and others the way a gardener might tend to prized roses.

10. Be grateful. All a flower needs to bloom is some good soil, a little light and water. Most of us are blessed with everything we need to thrive, but we often misuse our resources or take them for granted. This spring, let’s be thankful for the sun and the rain and all the metaphorical dirt that work together to help us grow so we can come into full bloom. §

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”
~Frances Hodgson Burnett, from The Secret Garden

Creating Beauty in January ~ Candlelight

Screenshot 2023-01-23 at 4.51.28 PM

The cold, dark days of January beg for candlelight. What a simple way to add beauty to our surroundings. Candles can offer warm flickering light, enjoyable fragrance, and even inspiring symbolism.

I light a candle on our fireplace mantle nearly every morning before the sun rises. I love the sound of the matchstick striking in the quiet of the morning. The yellow-white flame flares and fades as it gently kisses the candlewick. I blow out the match and watch the gray smoke disappear as the candle shines with the promise of a new day. Candles can create beauty while we bathe, work, dine or clean the kitchen. No matter the time of day, candlelight instantly creates a peaceful ambiance, and couldn’t we all use a little more of that in our lives?

Most of us have stood in front of a display of candles bringing each one to our nose until we find the perfect one. In wintertime, favorite fragrances often include pine, vanilla, spice and berry. Fragrance experts recommend matching the scent to our activity as some fragrances are energizing and others are more relaxing. I love them all, but even in winter, I prefer a pretty floral scent that transports me to a spring garden. What is your favorite scent?

When I was a teacher, I loved having a candle burning on my classroom desk. I almost believe it had magical powers over my students, causing them to be quieter, calmer and more reflective ~ perfect for a middle school literature classroom. Candles hold symbolic significance and can represent romance, security, hope and spirituality. Saint Francis of Assisi wrote, “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

There are many ways to create more beauty in our lives, but lighting a candle in the deep midwinter takes little effort for big results. So let’s light a candle, soak up the glow, inhale the fragrance, and let it remind us to shine our own light into a dark world. §

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
~ Edith Wharton, American Novelist

A Note to You ~ Thank you for being here! Just so you know, on Sundays I share the weekly column I write for The Southern Illinoisan. My Wednesday posts are a little more personal and written specifically for readers of The Simple Swan. In 2023, Wednesday posts will be on a specific topic ~
1st Wednesday ~ Poetry
2nd Wednesday ~ Being Present
3rd Wednesday ~ Something Sublime
4th Wednesday ~ Creating Beauty

Thank you!

Martin Luther King empowers our dreams

One Monday in January when my children were quite young and impressionable, their father and I took them to a parade followed by a large event in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Our children took home many lessons that day about King’s message of peace and equality, but what stuck with them most was his idea of having a dream.

It’s difficult enough for children to understand dreams as something that happens in the mind while asleep, but it is even more difficult to to explain the kind of dreams Martin Luther King spoke of in the speech he gave on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Dreams as cherished aspirations, ambitions and ideals was the stuff of King’s speech to the 200,000 people who peacefully journeyed there that day and reverberates in our hearts and minds sixty years later.

Martin Luther King taught my children, as he teaches us all, the power of keeping dreams alive. He sparked in them an understanding about the importance of having faith in big dreams – not just their own, but those of their fellow man, and those of a nation.

In 1922, Langston Hughes wrote in a poem called Dreams, “Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” Thirty years later, the same poet asked in another poem, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”

Martin Luther King refused to sit back and watch his dream be deferred. Nor did he want it to explode in violence or shatter and disappear. The Baptist minister gave his life to the dream of advancing civil rights in the United States through faith, nonviolent activism, and hope in the brotherhood of man.

In his song Shed a Little Light James Taylor sings these words, “Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth. Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead. We are bound and we are bound.”

On Monday, when you are off from work, when the kids are home from school, when you find yourself grumbling that the bank and post office are closed, turn your thoughts to Martin Luther King. Contemplate his dream, your dream, your child’s dream and every child’s dream. Vow to hold tight to those dreams, to work to help make them come to fruition and never be a dream deferred. §

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Poetry for Ukraine ~ a Haiku

“Mourning Dove”

cooing mourning dove
iridescent wings of mauve
softly prays for peace

~Alicia Woodward

“Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

Read Alicia’s previous poems for Ukraine:
“With the Strength of Snowdrops” https://thesimpleswan.wordpress.com/2022/03/02
“War Can Turn to Peace” https://thesimpleswan.wordpress.com/2022/03/09
“Innocence” https://thesimpleswan.wordpress.com/2022/03/16
“An Elegant Response to War” https://thesimpleswan.wordpress.com/2022/03/23
“The Sky” https://thesimpleswan.wordpress.com/2022/03/30

Poetry for Ukraine ~ “The Sky”

“The Sky”

The sky belongs to the hazy moon and to the glowing sun
It wasn’t made for fighter jets, bursting bombs, or guns

That sacred space is for the birds to glide on wings and soar
It’s unnatural to be the scene of destruction, hate, or war

The place where God put rainbows, stars, and butterflies
Does not belong to greedy men and self-important lies

A peaceful sphere for passing clouds and for the gentle wind
Is best reserved for reverie and flying kites with friends

The wild blue yonder holds for us a promise up above
It’s good for prayers and wishes and hopeful thoughts of love

The heavens have watched over us since the dawn of time
When we are at our very worst and moments when we shine

The sky belongs to angels and people who can fly
For those set free from earthly woes and gravity defy §

-Alicia Woodward

Note regarding this poem’s allusion to “people who can fly” ~
The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales is the title of a book written by Virginia Hamilton in 1985. It is a collection of 24 folktales including one called The People Could Fly. In this tale, slaves sing ancient African words and magically fly away to freedom. I’d like to believe people bound by chains of oppression, illness, addiction, disease, or poverty can defy all odds and break free. Maybe strength comes in knowing these are only earthly chains and will not last forever.

“I thank you God for this amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.”
~ e. e. cummings

Poetry for Ukraine ~ “An Elegant Response to War”

“An Elegant Response to War”

how do I respond to war
with elegance and grace
when I know the pain and suffering
of my fellow human race

am I wrong to revel in
the warmth and hope of spring
to laugh and dance and celebrate
the joy that living brings

do I fill my days quite blissfully
with love and peace and light
do I still thank God for all the things
that bring me such delight

is it enough to stay informed
and weep and sigh and pray
to shake my head and make a wish
for peace to come one day

how do I respond to war
with elegance and grace
would it be okay to greet the day
with a smile upon my face?

-Alicia Woodward

“There never was a good war or a bad peace.” – Benjamin Franklin

The Elegance of Sympatheia

A news anchor broke down in tears while interviewing a Ukrainian father whose wife and two children were killed while trying to escape their city under siege. I know I’m not the only viewer who wept with them. In that moment, we were experiencing what the ancient Greeks called sympatheia, an elegant concept that all things are mutually woven together and have an affinity for each other.

Sympatheia reminds us we’re part of something much bigger than ourselves. You’ve probably seen a photo called The Blue Marble. It is an image of Earth taken fifty years ago by the Apollo 17 crew on their way to the Moon. It was shot 18,000 miles from our planet and is one of the most reproduced images in history. Astronomer Carl Sagan said, “There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.”

Maybe you’ve had a similar feeling standing on the ocean shore, on the rim of the Grand Canyon, or under a million stars in the vast night sky. This oceanic feeling happens when we allow ourselves to have a zoomed-out perspective. It’s then we experience a feeling of awe and realization that we are very small, but part of something incomprehensibly big.

Stoic philosophy is rooted in the concept of sympatheia. Roman emperor Marcus Arelius wrote, “Meditate often on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe.” The Stoics understood we are essentially all the same. We all suffer and cry, love and laugh, live and die. Sympatheia allows us to understand that our actions affect one another.

Ryan Holiday, author and host of the podcast The Daily Stoic said, “We are all unified and share the same substance. We breathe the same air. We share the same hopes and dreams. We are all descended from the same. And this is true no matter what race you are, no matter where you come from, or what you believe.”

My guess is sympatheia doesn’t come naturally to our selfish egos. Of course, we look out for number one. We probably care about family and those immediately around us. We might even feel a duty to those who look like us, live like us, and think like us. Sympatheia takes some work.

If we think about that photo of Earth and hold that zoomed-out perspective, our connection and our responsibility grow. We can see we are part of an interconnected world, where everything and everyone is united in a delicate relationship. It is this connection to each other that can push us to be and do what’s good, not just for a part, but for the whole.

Aurelius wrote, “The universe made rational creatures for the sake of each other, with an eye toward mutual benefit and never for harm.” In the big picture, our differences are insignificant. What unites us is our sameness. Our planet. Our humanity. What if our world leaders understood and practiced the concept of sympatheia? A better question might be, what if we all did? §

“What’s good for the hive is good for the bees.” – Marcus Aurelius

Poetry for Ukraine ~ “War Can Turn to Peace”

“War Can Turn to Peace”

War
Ugly, Inhumane
Hating, Destroying, Dying
Explosions, Fear…Silence, Hope
Loving, Creating, Living
Beautiful, Compassionate
Peace

-Alicia Woodward

Like most Americans, I’m frightened and saddened by the inhumanity of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In my effort to find something positive I can do to to help, I’m writing poetry in support of the brave people of Ukraine which I will share on Wednesdays in my Just Between Friends post.

The form of poetry I’ve written this week is called a diamanté. It’s made up of just 16 words in seven unrhymed lines which form a diamond shape. Diamanté is the Italian word for diamond. The first and last lines are nouns, usually of opposite meaning. The rest of the lines are made up of nouns and adjectives related to the beginning and ending words. (I chose to divide my poem with ellipses.)

This relatively new form of poetry was created in 1969 by American poet Iris McClellan Tiedt. Studying and writing this simple form of poetry was always a favorite of my middle school literature students.

Writing poetry is, if nothing else, an elegant way to process and express our feelings. It won’t end a war, but it might offer a little comfort. If you’d like to try your hand at a diamanté poem, here’s the format:

Noun
Adjective, Adjective (related to first word)
Verb, Verb, Verb (related to first word)
Noun, Noun (related to first word)… Noun, Noun (related to last word)
Verb, Verb, Verb (related to last word)
Adjective, Adjective (related to last word)
Noun

Please read my previous poem for Ukraine ~ The Strength of Snowdrops at https://thesimpleswan.wordpress.com/2022/03/02

“No one in the world will forgive you (Vladimir Putin) for killing peaceful Ukrainian people.”
~Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Poetry for Ukraine ~ “With the Strength of Snowdrops”

“With the Strength of Snowdrops”

Snowdrops pierce through frozen ground
Amid fiery blasts and artillery rounds

Tiny flowers so brave and bright
Show strength in their tenacious fight

Eager blossoms unfurl with glee
Like a flag flying free

Beauty and promise spring after spring
Despite despair the season brings

While man may sow hate and strife
Nature blooms with hope and life §

~Alicia Woodward

“Snowdrops: Theirs is a fragile but hardy celebration …in the very teeth of winter.”
~ Louise Wilder

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