National Treasure

I almost forgot to post today and then sitting here I was thinking, “I got nothin’.” So I started going through what I had done today, and one of my favourite parts was listing to the CBC. I’m sure I’ve gone on (and on) about this before, but it’s my blog so I’ll rave if I want to.

I love the CBC. Love it! I can’t imagine that there is a better radio station anywhere. At least not in English. I’ve listened to BBC and NPR, and the CBC kicks their butts. Or at least I think so. Perhaps being Canadian sways me, as I get the jokes and savour the nuances. But really, I just love the incredible variety of things talked about.

Most days I’ll fire up Q, the podcast, and listen to Jian Ghomeshi, who is perhaps the best interviewer of our time. Because of the time change, I also occasionally listen to the Maritime radio live (the first Canadian broadcast of the day, of course.) Makes me wish I had made it that far east. Someday.

I’ll listen to any program if the topic at all interests me: Quirks and Quarks, DNTO, Canada Reads, the Massey Lectures.

Today I was listening to Tapestry, which is another favourite. I’m a spiritual person with undefined religious affiliations, and I enjoy pondering what I personally believe about the spiritual topics being discussed.

The podcast I played was a listener-request for the interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner, who wrote the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” a story written in large part to address his experience with his son’s death. Rabbi Kushner was funny in a sweet way, obviously wise, very humble and imperfectly human. His conversation this time with Mary Hynes was about his new books, “Conquering Fear: Living Boldly in an Uncertain World.”

Being someone how actually has the opposite problem, in that I too-often dive head-first into life without checking out how deep the water is, I was interested in how this would apply to me.

There were many things that struck me about the discussion, particularly about the fear of failure or the fear of success. Perhaps the point that stuck with me most was that Kuschner believes there is not success or failure, there is success or forgiveness. He has seen time and time again people who believe they have failed being forgiven by the people who love them. Of course, this isn’t always true, especially for individuals who don’t achieve what they were hoping to in a very public way. However, I think this philosophy is very true in my life. The people around me for the most part don’t judge me or hold it against me when something falls apart. They value that I tried and moved on. And I tend to provide the same support with the family and friends in my life. What I’m really bad at is forgiving myself when I “fail”. This program today was a great reminder to do less judging and more forgiving, both to those people in my life but mostly myself. It is a tough lesson to learn.

*On that personal note, it probably is a good time to mention that I’m pulling this blog off the search engines for a while. I’m going to make more of an effort to find work, and first interviews are like first dates…you don’t want to give your whole life story during the initial meeting. So if you are one of those folks who types website addresses into the Google search box instead of the top URL address bar, you might have to change your ways for a few weeks. Email me if you are having trouble and I’ll walk you through it.