Living a Renewable Life ~ what it means to me

“Renew: to give fresh life and strength to,� Oxford American Dictionaries.

Life tends to be reactive. Adult life often begins with declaring a college major – so that we can graduate. We grab the first job we can get out of college, because we need to make a living. We work, often to meet the expectations of others – our organizations, our bosses, our clients, our customers. We take on partners and start families, creating more expectations. We become captors of our society, reacting to what is expected.

It usually takes a catalyst such as a death, a job loss, an illness, or a broken heart that stops our automatic responses to life. Rather than wait for life-changing events, what if we took a day out of each quarter of the year to stop and ask ourselves: “What do I need to do for the next 3 months that will freshen and give strength to my life?�

Donna Bennett

Donna Bennett is an award-winning career consultant who has worked for 25 years with diverse individuals and organizations. She is a LearningLife instructor and will be a presenter at the spring Fest.

Living a renewable life:

Something to do
Something to love
Something to look forward to

Something to do = purpose
Something to love = everyone needs to give and receive affection
Something to look forward to = challenge

Jerry Allan

Jerry Allan is an educator, architect, and nationally recognized expert on creativity. He is a LearningLife instructor and will be a presenter at the spring Fest.

To me, living a renewable life is waking up each morning with gratitude for this day and asking what can I do today that has meaning to me, making an intention. And reminding myself several times during the day--What is my intention in this moment and this situation? What is the most loving action I can take in this moment? And discarding things that do not nourish my spirit. Bringing awareness to our actions in every moment and choosing what speaks to our hearts.

Terry Pearson

Terry Pearson has over 35 years of clinical experience in health care. In 2004, she began the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course at the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality and Healing, a LearningLife partner.

What does living a renewable life mean to you?

As I reflect on this question, my thoughts focus on the “new� in “renewable� – on the importance of treating each experience as new and an opportunity for change. Related to this, I am intrigued by the Zen concept of beginner’s mind. In the prologue to his classic book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki observes that “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.� On the surface, this seems to be an expression of distrust for knowledge and expertise, but I think that misses the point. Rather, Suzuki is encouraging us to continually encounter the world with a fresh eye and an open mind. In the process, we will grow … and we will further develop our knowledge and expertise. Maintaining a beginner’s mind helps us keep growing.

As a scholar, having a beginner’s mind helps me to challenge my assumptions and to formulate problems in a way that gets to more fundamental questions. As a citizen, having a beginner’s mind encourages me to actively consider ideas from all points of view before deciding which policy proposal to support. As a husband, father, or friend, having a beginner’s mind helps me to delight in the surprises, insights, and emotions we encounter in our relationships with others. So, for me, a renewable life is a beginner’s life.

Rob King

Robert P. King is Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. This summer, he is co-teaching an LearningLife Beyond the Book program on The Omnivore's Dilemma.

I’m still finding out what a renewable life means to me, and so are most of my friends. We know we are the first generation in history to have the luxury of reinventing ourselves for our 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. But to say this is “challenging� is an understatement.

For me, it’s like having to grow up all over again. I find I’m jealous of high-school students, not for their youth, but because they have career counselors to help them plan their futures. Frankly, I’d like a career counselor myself.

I also envy the people who couldn’t wait to get out of their jobs and go do something else. But as a good friend put it this week, “I loved my job. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do more.� Me too.

Picturing my demographic, I feel as if all of us in it are reinventing the wheel, one person at a time—as if we are independently freelancing now, struggling (or not) with the same questions: What next? And how?

It gets a little lonely, trying to figure it out for myself. Sometimes, it’s downright scary.

I feel a tremendous time pressure to find exactly the right path forward. My father once said, at (gulp) the same age I am now, “I’m not yet in the twilight of my life, but it’s definitely after lunch.� Now I know what he meant. Every decision seems to count more now, and every idle minute feels like more of a waste than at any prior point in my life.

I would really like to hear from others about how they are coping with this luxurious challenge. Does anyone else feel frustrated?

Catherine Watson

Catherine Watson is an award-winning writer, editor, and photographer. She was the first travel editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and was its chief travel writer and photographer for 26 years. She will be a presenter at the LearningLife spring Fest.

Living a renewable life, to me, means living day-to-day with a solid sense of purpose--a reason to get up in the morning! To live my vision of the "good life" means, to me, that I am "living in the PLACE I feel that I belong, with the PEOPLE I love and want to be with, while doing my RIGHT WORK with a clear sense of PURPOSE. RIGHT WORK means spending my most precious currency, my time, on my "life's work" (paid or unpaid) from cradle-to-grave. I'm doing my Right Work when I am giving the "gifts I love" to the roles, projects, jobs, organizations I "feel passionate about" in an environment which hears my voice and honors my values.

Is this vision of an ideal life idealistic? Yes. Is it possible? Definitely. Is there a way to uncover it? Yes. And, that is what the LearningLife Spring Fest is all about...a day of renewal!

Richard Leider

Richard Leider is an internationally renowned life coach, author, and executive educator. A senior fellow at the U of M’s Center for Spirituality and Healing, his books are considered classics in the personal development field. His new book, Something to Live For, is forthcoming in June 2008. Richard will be a presenter at the spring Fest.

What "living a renewable life" means to me

What a provocative question to ponder. My first thought is to peel the layers like an onion:

…to think about things, about recycling, about my carbon footprint, about conserving energy…which reminds me of living in California during the drought of the late 70s when our young family learned to “flush with a friend� and my children offered to conserve water by never bathing again!

… about recalling the unique yet minute speck of life that I am on this planet, renewed each day when I awake…which reminds me of the relevance of the opening line of the prayer I pray each morning, thanking the Eternal Source of Life for “renewing my soul, my life�.

…about engaging with the eternal and renewable moment of NOW of which I am reminded whether I am watching a mother duck with her newborn ducklings or reading the amazingly gorgeous words and phrases of Toni Morrison and other master writers.

…about gratefully remembering past relationships to honor those teachers gone before me, and for the legacies passed on to me by my family, tribe, and culture…which I experience with awe about how the story I come from could end up with me, and with motivation lighting my way to do my part to live, perpetuate, and renew values and history.

… about renewing my purpose with my reflection and journaling discipline, which reminds me to be the best messenger I can be: communicating the urgency and significance of each and every one of us to discover, articulate and preserve our values, blessings, and wisdom for the generations to come, so we’ll leave but a tiny carbon footprint, and a large legacy footprint of love.

…about rejoicing in the reality that I am a woman, which reminds me of my responsibility to birth and and renew through nurture, biologically and spiritually, in partnership with the Creator.

I think living a renewable life means to be aware, awake–conscious, that every choice I make reverberates all over the planet and beyond…simple, but not easy in a world bent on seducing and distracting us every moment from the meaning of life: Learning, Loving, Living a Renewable LIFE.

Rachael Freed

Rachael Freed is a pioneer in the field of family-centered care in life-threatening and chronic illness. Her current work centers on professional and personal legacies, including ethical and spiritual wills. She is the author of Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies: Passing Your Beliefs and Blessings to Future Generations.

The idea of renewal has taken three very different but interesting forms for me in recent years. (All through Compleat Scholar classes).

I first took a course on Writing the Personal Essay (not the exact title) taught by Toni McNaron in the Spring of 2006.
This course, which was inspiring to say the least, went from its inception with a class of 25 members, to become a serious writing group of 8 people who are still working on their own visions and personal writings under the exceptional tutilige of Professor McNaron.

My second class was on Milton and Paridise Lost also from Toni McNaron. I first had Professor McNaron for Milton when I was an English major at the U of MN. I was 21; she was 27. What an experience to retake it in 2007; from a brilliant feminist and from an historical perspective offered by Prof. McNaron.

My most recent course was on Tanzania in February 2008. It was such an inspIrational class I think I will return to Africa (I went in 2006-- and that trip is the subject of my writing group under Toni McNaron) .

To sum it up: Renewal to me is the ironic return to the old to breathe fresh air into old experiences AND to explore the new with the courage and insight gained from that return to the old. (Old age creates wisdom).

Karin Luise Johnson at 64. still breathing and learning

Learning is a lifelong endeavor. I’ve continued my education over the past 62 years. Now I want to find avenues to share my experiences.

To me it means living comfortably but with an eye on preserving precious resources for future generations. We live in a small house and practice recycling and reuse. We bike to work and as often as we can for errands, pleasure and other reasons. We also try to shop locally and eat locally produced food.

A quote by Richard Bach: "Here’s a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t." So life continues to unfold my purpose and each day new events make my life more fulfilled. Learning never ends—wisdom deepens.

Becoming uncomfortable with my certainty. Challenging what I think. Moving from reflecting to challenging, from opening to entering, from seeing to focusing, from connecting to bonding, from thinking to doing. Renewing is understanding the purpose of growth is more growth.

Renewable life is evolving life: one that is on a continuous development or change.

A renewable life to me means a life of giving back—energizing. It can be revitalizing a relationship, renewing your body with healthy resources or spiritually filling yourself up with something larger than yourself.

Simply—new beginning. Maybe things to push you outside your comfort zone or simply new and different. As a good friend said, it is learning to exfoliate from within.

For me ‘a renewable life’ means at any time I can evaluate and reevaluate my goals, my living style and my outlook on life.

Life is always renewable at every stage of the life cycle. As we age, renewing life is the most exciting part of it all.

Renewable Life? Finally figuring out what to do between full-time work and nothing to do!

A renewable life to me is about living consciously - making decisions deliberately on how I want to live. As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living.