A MOUNTAIN VIEW

By LIZA FIELD/Columnist

February: a great time for sap to stir, people to step out and new life to sail in.

So last week, my students began stepping out of their habitual comfort zones.

It had been recommended by our teacher Epictetus, a Greek slave to the Romans, who'd been set free to study and live his life in simple poverty and joy, teaching any who came to him for understanding.

With exhortations like “How others behave is not your concern,” and “Quit following the mob and grow up,” his medicine was not a comforting salve of condolence for these victims of the Roman Empire, political or social abuse. Epictetus himself had suffered plenty of injustice.

Rather, his detached medicine was like an astonishing bucket of cold water on the head—an injunction to tend one's own life, behavior and interior tyrant instead of focusing on other people's.

Only by making no demands of the universe and, instead, ordering one's own inner fears, drives and gotta-have-its—all those unconscious tyrannies—could a person exit his trance and step into the fresh, reviving air of reality.

One mother in our class, also a nurse, had been in the habit of hitting her snooze button at 5:30 every morning, then 5:35, and so on until 6 a.m.—finally racing around to wake up the kids and make breakfast and get everyone out the door, stressed and unhappy.

She decided just to get up at 5:30, like it or not. Things were calm and unrushed. Her husband expressed relief; one of her sons asked, “Can we do your homework again next week?” She had to laugh, “Yes!”

Another student had carried an old grudge for years against a former friend who'd betrayed her. She took a deep, scared breath and called up this lady and had a long, reconciling conversation.

Joy flowed in, and she found that the familiar, warm habit of hatred, long-lodged inside herself toward this old enemy, was gone. It felt like losing weight—a strange, not-comfortable feeling, but light, fresh and freeing. The two restored friends plan to meet for coffee.

One student had always been afraid to give blood. Trying to think of how to tackle this assignment as she walked out of a building one day, she saw a Bloodmobile parked. She made her feet walk right toward it and up the steps and signed in.

She did not die. She was filled with joy at the awareness that someone else on the planet needed this living blood, and it was a privilege to have any to give.

It so inspired another student in our class, likewise afraid, that she too decided she'd go to a different blood drive and donate. Both students plan to donate regularly. They both felt the joy of triumph over their fears and a fresh circulation with the human race.

One father decided the winter padding and food-habit had become his comfort zone. He spent the week going for vegetables and less volume, and walking outdoors. Five pounds fell off and now his young son is walking with him.

One teenage student had always been terrified of leaving the house without makeup, perfect hair and apparel. What would people think if she didn't look glamorous?

Epictetus said it was not her business what they thought, that people-pleasing was a “trap.” So when her family needed something from Wal-Mart, one evening, she went out the door in non-designer jeans, a comfortable sweatshirt and no makeup.

This was as terrifying to her as going naked might be for another person. But she determinedly walked into the buzzing store, crossed paths with various people she knew and realized they didn't notice, if they quite saw her at all. They were caught up in their own concerns. This dose of reality invigorated and freed her.

Another student had long been terrified of his family's disapproval, to the point of feeling paralyzed. He's carved out quiet time for himself to generate some independence of thought and action.

One of the old Greek words we rarely hear today is “acedia.” It meant a sense of futility, fear, habituation, despair, inability to change, and what Matthew Fox calls “couch-potato-itis.” Thomas Aquinas called it a lack of energy to begin new things. My students call it “apathy.”

They broke through theirs by walking, cleaning out closets, recycling, picking up trash, taking boxes to Goodwill, giving blood, and many other considerable triumphs. “If I can,” one student wrote with amazement, “Anybody can.”

Liza Field can be reached at wcfiell@wcc.vccs.edu.