The first time I wrote about Vitality as a virtue, I was thinking about the holidays and how much energy they can stimulate for us:
Well, what about the rest of year?
We are days away from a new year as I sit here writing these words, and I find that I am steeped in more peaceful thoughts; not the peace of “goodwill toward all men” (though a constant on my Aloha Virtues as well) but the peace of calm and of contentment, of the Hawaiian value I call Ma‘alahi [the persuasion for calm contentment.]
I am sure it has much to do with the year-end reflection we all so naturally go through in this final week of the year, asking ourselves what we will keep and decidedly perpetuate (Ho‘omau comes to mind, and causing our good to last), and conversely, what we are willing let go of.
The ‘letting go’ is valuable in our New Year reflections, for it usually has to do with making room for other things we’ve set our sights on, as opposed to some loss. A full 365 days are ahead of us, and oh the possibilities! Those are the thoughts that now bring Vitality back to mind for me, making room, and I’ve been playing with the word, wondering how I would rewrite my Aloha Virtues description if it was more appropriate for the entire year to come.
What would keeping vitality as a year-long virtue mean to you?
How would you turn it into a value, if you chose it for a month in our Value of the Month program, or if you decided it would be the theme for your entire year?
I can tell you this much (for I am still thinking about this too): Vitality is a word I love. I still associate vitality with verve, and with lively energy, and with those Zs: “Zip. Zeal. Zest.” To me, vitality is very much about that ‘fire which burns within us.’ You might call it passion, or purpose, or as I do, Ho‘ohana; the Ho‘ohana of intentional work, but it is less serious and more spontaneous and impulsive; there is a good giving in quality to it. All the while you are smiling, or laughing; you feel brighter, healthier.
Back to Ho‘ohana for a sec, those feelings of vitality can happen there too.
I like work. I like the value of work. I like that it makes me feel very alive, active and vital, and that its results can be so important to me and worthwhile to other people too. For me to live well, work has to be part of the whole, for if I am not churning something out, getting things done, creating and inventing as I go, I feel bored and lazy and unaccomplished. I feel like I am wasting those gifts that the good Lord (and my parents, and others) gave me, and invested on within me.
Complacency is the opposite of Vitality, and because it is such an opposite I am constantly aware of it, and aware of warding it off; complacency is simply awful to me. However I find that complacency has this tricky cousin which trips me up sometimes, and keeps me from being less than totally vital. That cousin’s name is Maintenance.
As I sit here today and consider how I will keep vitality in my life in the coming year, I wonder what I am simply maintaining, and nothing more. What am I maintaining in a less than creative way? What am I maintaining that has stopped growing, and I would be far better off letting it go, so that my Vitality can appear elsewhere, becoming something more?
It’s like that plant that you might be keeping alive on a kitchen window sill in filtered light, over-watering it unconsciously, when you suddenly look at it one day and realize something: It’s so very sad! While it’s true not a single leaf has withered, yellowed or fallen, you haven’t seen a new shoot or bud in months. The poor plant has essentially stopped living on that window sill, and the prospects of reviving it are very dim unless you can find a safe and sunny place for it outside somewhere, where Mother Nature will be a much better caretaker than you can ever be —even when you are at your very best. You are not a great gardener, and you will likely never be one.
But that’s okay. Your vitality lives elsewhere, and you know that it does. The thing is, every day you have watered that sad little plant longingly was a bit wasted in that effort, and now you know it’s time to redirect your efforts, and make every single one of them vital again.
Yep, I do think that is what Vitality will mean for me the rest of the year, and 2009 suits the bill perfectly. In fact, I can start today.
Photo Credits: Window Sill, Wellington, by ms sdb on Flickr, and Sill still life by Brenda Anderson on Flickr
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