away teaching project

so this past weekend i made a spur of the moment trip to another cluster for their expansion phase.  their cluster is larger geographically than mine, but has less baha’is, and also not many youth – or at least, active youth.  in any case, i figured that it would be wise for me to go and get some more experience with direct teaching – and my auxiliary board member actually came out and said to me “i think you should come” so i drove out with her and another baha’i from my cluster.

this cluster is just starting to get their feet wet – so the project was only two days long.  but what we learned is that, at this stage, the quality of the learning was key.  the morning finds us at home base – us three from my cluster were all in our 20’s, whereas the local baha’is participating in the project were all 50+ years old.

it was wonderful.

age is an attitude, my friends.  these souls were there to learn, and were just selfless in their approach toward this process.  and it’s funny because they think that because they’re older, they can’t contribute – or at least, there is this sense of youth = capable.  i don’t know where this idea comes from… maybe people are feelin that way because of some of the trends in our activities lately, but it’s so important to dispel this myth.  being involved in serving the Plan does not require anything but a humble posture of learning.  this has been my biggest lesson these past few months, as my own cluster has started to rise to a new level of activity in two neighborhoods.

i also learned that things have to move little by little.  and by things i mean everything.  my own progress, the progress of other individuals, the progress of the community, and that of the institutions.  little by little.  often i find myself telling myself that i’m not good at this or that, and i get frustrated when i try and these gradiose expectations that i had dreamed up don’t come to pass.  but it’s unreasonable to expect such things! it’s wonderful to have high standards, but setting yourself up for failure is not good.  one must be realistic.  i have to be realistic.

i also learned that sometimes, people just aren’t interested – and i shouldn’t be attached to whether they are or not.  you know, the first day, every door we knocked either didn’t answer or didn’t care.  and that brought me down.. but really, it’s not about me at all – and actually, it’s a bounty just to have the ability to go to someone’s door and knock on it and give them the opportunity to learn.  so i should be grateful for every step that i took this past weekend.  i know we all theoretically know about being detached from results, but it’s a whole other story when you’re outside in the cold, your partner is feeling dejected, and people are rude. then the next day we had a really beautiful experience, and my partners got super excited and such.   but you know, if we’re not attached to results – then we should neither rejoice at a positive response, nor be sorrowful with negative responses.  it’s all about the middle path.

anyway, those were some pieces of learning that i thought i’d share.

more to come in the coming days/weeks.

Career choices

as i neared the end of my first degree this past year, i began to perceive a few things that i was blind to before. for one thing, most of my graduating class has no idea what they are going to do when they grow up. this is a bit of a weird predicament to be in when you have finished a biochemistry degree, are possibly in debt, and perhaps don’t really like the world of science… and yet here you are – having to grow up and live in the world. the other thing is that of my high school friends (we all graduated together four years ago), i am the first to convocate from university. and the third observation is that i have no ability to comprehend this idea of “well, i just find this subject fascinating”.

i’m starting to realize that we get to our 20s not really knowing who we are, what we are capable of, or what we like doing – and then we just start doing stuff and get stuck in it because “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. in my work with junior youth, we try to help them gain a sense of their talents and help them develop skills and abilities that will enhance their understanding of the world. so then they would reach age 15 hopefully knowing themselves and what they want. in my opinion, schools should spend more time on this, rather than on filling kids with information – information often which is out of date, impractical, or will be retaught over and over and over again. but having a sense of your talents and abilities is only one aspect of it.

i think also, we need to have a direction to our lives – some sort of goal. pure interest, i don’t think, can ever get us very far.  i think that the reason why most of my friends haven’t completed a degree  yet – they just don’t know what they want, or why they want it. so they go into one program one year.. find it interesting, but not something they want to do for ever… then switch to another program because they took one class in the area and found it interesting… but then a year later find that, actually, that wasn’t everything they expected it to be and the cycle continues… over and over and over.  i guess that maybe, somewhere down the line someone is making a lot of money off of the indecisiveness of our young people – but i can say this much with certainty: our society will be  having one massive technological hangover when this misty night is over.

i guess having a direction in one’s life really relates to one’s belief system – one’s core values.  however, we live in an environment where morality and beliefs have become “what i feel like”.  in this type of setting, it’s no wonder none of us have a direction to go in – or a way of judging whether that direction is realistic or good – or whether we are getting signs that are suggesting another way.

in any case, i hate pointing out problems and then not suggesting a solution… so i would say, for now, that a starting point in this predicament is perhaps that each of us adopts an attitude of action, reflection, and consultation – well, that, and that we all find some sort of belief system to adhere too – or core values.  while i don’t think that a person can ever believe in something for the sake of believing.. perhaps it if were for a reason.. if you believed in something because you wanted to improve yourself, or to help our society not mess up our youth – then i think that would make adherence a lot easier…  anyway, that’s all for now…