(00:00:11) Good afternoon. Welcome back to our Christmas Eve edition of midday on Minnesota Public Radio. Hope you're having a great day and glad you could join us here on midday today holiday season, of course is traditionally a time when we tend to reflect on what we've accomplished and what we might be able to contribute in the future time to look back at where we been look ahead to where we might be headed and perhaps there's going to be a whole lot more reflecting this year than usual after all here. We are coming to the end of another year another decade a century a millennium even so in keeping with the spirit of this season today, we're going to get some advice and how to make the most of the rest of our days Rabbi Harold Kushner was in the Twin Cities this fall to give a lecture on what to do with the rest of your life. Rabbi Kushner is the author of the bestseller why bad things happen to good people. He's also in wide demand as a lecturer and this fall he spoke at the Academy for Faith exploration and educational outreach program sponsored by the Wayzata Community Church here with some thoughts and how to make the most of your time and your life is Rabbi Harold Kushner (00:01:23) the 18 years since my first major book came out. I can't tell you how many people have come up to me and said Rabbi. I got a great idea for your next book. Why don't you write a book on when good things happen to bad people because that's what really bothers me. They would say to me. It makes sense that if you're a caring sensitive person, you can't get through life without feeling some of the pain and anguish of what happens in this world. And I think I can agree with you when you say that it's not God's job to weave a magic circle around us and protect us from Misfortune and let it happen to other people. Okay? What I can't understand is this if there is so much grief and anguish in the world couldn't some of it land on my neighbor who deserves it. So before I finish I want to remember to spend five minutes talking about good things that happen to bad people why we could people get away with murder if I forget when we get to the question period somebody please remind me. Okay want to begin with a true story happened almost exactly two hundred years ago around 1803 1804 in a small village in czarist Russia. Now, there's no reason why you would be familiar with this but the early 19th century was a particularly bad time for Jews living in czarist Russia. They not only have to contend with the anti-semitic policy of the Tsar. They not only had to contend with the crude religious bigotry of the peasants living around them, but they had to deal with a terrible vicious split down the center of the Jewish Community a divide between the charismatic ecstatic Jews the hasidim on the one hand and their opponents the Great conventional Jews on the other the dislike between these two groups was so intense Not only would they not worship in each other synagogues Not only would they not permit their children to marry each other things occasionally got so bad that they would go to the czar's police and tell lies about the religious opponents only to get them in trouble. And so what happened that a leading Hasidic Rabbi, the the founder of the Lubavitch sect of hasidism was arrested on charges of treason against the tsar and languished in prison for several months until he was freed Now The Story Goes that one day while the rabbi was in prison the jail keeper came up to him and said, they tell me that you're a rabbi and a wise man. Can I ask you a question? Rubba? Sure ask anything you want. The Jailer says I'm not a believer. I'm not religious but I have a lot of friends who are and they're always after me to read the Bible. They're always telling me to read the Bible you benefit from it read the Bible. It would be good for you. Never had tied the other day. I sat down to read the Bible and I got to tell you Rabbi. I don't see what the fuss is about. I mean look page 3 of The Bible. God says to Adam. Where are you? Come on one man in the whole world and God can't find him. And the rabbi smiles and says no, you didn't understand the story. God doesn't ask Adam. Where are you? Because he can't find him. He knows where he where Adam is. God asked him. Where are you? Because he wants Adam to start asking himself. Yeah, where am I? For example, he said to the Jailer you're 44 years old and where are you and when the jail keeper heard the rabbi identify precisely how old he was. He was shocked and went back to his office to reopen some questions. He thought he had settled that's the story. I remember the first time I read that story. I was 21 years old. I was in my first year of rabbinical school. We were studying Martin boobers book about tales of the hasidim. I ran across that story and to this day. I remember how I responded I said, hey, that's a nice story. I want to remember it someday. I'll use it in the sermon. But why did they have to spoil it at the end? Why do they have to take this really nice classic story and turned it into a cheap. Mind reading trick. I know how old you are. And then a few years ago, I happen to run across the story again. And now I was in my late 40s. And for the first time I understood it the point of the story is not that the rabbi could guess how old the jail keeper was. That's not a big deal. The point of the story is something happens to a man in his mid-40s happens to woman maybe a couple of years before that when you suddenly realize you are looking at life differently. You suddenly realize that life doesn't look the same to you as it did shortly before. At that point you are middle aged middle age is not a function of how many birthdays you've had of how many gray hairs. There are on your head or you know, all those jokes about Middle Ages when your middle shows your age middle age is an attitude toward time young people can be extravagant with time because they assume they have an endless supply of it. They're going to be around forever. You know how this works. If you have young people in your house, they they can hardly wait to be a year older. They can hardly wait for their next birthday. Your daughter calls you from college and says I'm changing my major. It means I have to stay another year. That's okay, isn't it? Well sure. What's another year when you're 19 years old and you have an endless supply of them a young person can invest six months in a relationship that doesn't work out and he doesn't feel he's been wasting his time. He feels he's been practicing his intimacy skills. And then suddenly something can happen and it can happen to you with any age and you'll never look at time the same way again, it could happen when your parents died and all of a sudden you're never prepared for this but you look around and you are now the older generation it can happen. The first time you go to the funeral of somebody your own age and all of a sudden you feel the hot breath of mortality on your neck and you realize that it's happened to you could happen the first time you get seriously ill and no matter how younger no matter how old you are in that hospital room waiting for the biopsy return to come back you begin to say to yourself. Hey, if I don't have time to do all the things on my wish list, what are the things I need to do to be me and what are the things that sound like fun? But if there isn't time for everything they're the ones that get crossed off. There was a classic short story by Tolstoy called The Death of Ivan, Ilyich. I don't know if any of you are familiar with it. It's the story of a very ordinary Russian man and a very ordinary job of the very ordinary family who one day realizes that the health problem is seeing his doctors for is something they're not going to be able to fix and sooner or later. He will die of it and he asked himself. What if I've been doing it wrong all these years my life my job my relationship to my wife and children. What if I've been doing it wrong and now it's too late to go back and do it. Right. I want to spend the next 40 minutes telling you what I think you need to do. So you will never ask yourself the even Ilyich question. What if I've been doing it wrong. I want to tell you what I think you need to know so you can feel good about how you have used your limited supply of years. One of the things that continues to bug me about American society that makes it hard for so many people to enjoy their Is that we are a society that celebrates winners and says there is no way to feel successful except to come in first in 1996 at the Olympic Games in Atlanta. I think it was the Nike company that put up a billboard on the road to Atlanta, which I think was nothing short of an obscenity. It said you don't win the silver. You lose the gold isn't that the dumbest thing you ever heard to be the second best Javelin thrower in the entire world and be told you're a loser because there's on a particular day. There's one person who's better than you we are a society that only honors people who come in first we make jokes about the team that loses the Super Bowl because there is no payoff to being the second best football team in the world. You are either the best or you are nothing, you know that whatever happened to Walter Mondale. Or for that matter to Michael Dukakis. He was your Senator Dukakis was my Governor. They were superb public servants when they ran for president 40 million Americans voted for each of them, but they didn't win and so they will go down in the history books as losers and we are a society that is cruel to Losers. When you define winning as the only way to be successful, you do two things and they're both bad. The first thing is you have just told 95% of all people that they're losers. I remember the woman who came in to see me in my office to my congregation one day. Looked up at me and said Rabbi. I don't know why I'm still alive. What's the point of my going on living? She said I have this terrible feeling that I was more attractive and more optimistic about life 10 years ago that I am today and 10 years from now. I will be even less attractive and even less optimistic. I have this terrible feeling that all the nice things that are going to happen in my life have already happened. And what do I have to look forward to she said I've got two children if I approve of the girls, they marry I will enjoy going to their weddings great to nice days of the next 30 Years. And I have to try and convince this woman that her life had not been wasted just because she wasn't successful in conventional terms it she didn't have a job people envied her for she didn't live in a house people envied her for but I said look, you have been a faithful wife for a quarter of a century. That's a real achievement. You've raised two very good kids. You're at a point in your life where you're being freed of certain family obligations. You can become a factor in this community your friends trust you and turn to you for help. There is a lot you can do with your life that you can feel good about but she had been so brainwashed with the sense that if you're not a winner, you're a loser that she felt her whole life had been one long failure. That's the first bad thing. We do the second bad thing. We do even those few people who come in first look around and say is this what it feels like to win. I really thought it would feel better than this. This is what I knock myself out for this is what I neglected my family for. This is what I pushed people out of the way for where is the payoff because the nasty little secret they never tell you until it's too late is this if you are real good at finishing ahead of other people you don't end up happy you end up lonely. There is no sadder person in the world than the person who has something to celebrate and nobody to share that celebration with there is a terrible sick old Jewish joke that I hate and I'm going to tell it to you because why should I be the only person to suffer with (00:13:02) it? (00:13:08) There was a rabbi once who was an avid golfer. The only thing he loved as much as his faith and his family was his golf game and every chance he had he would go on the golf course and play. On Yom Kippur on the day of atonement the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. There was a two-hour break in the middle of the service and the rabbi said hum going to go out on the golf course, the whole congregation will be in synagogue. I'll have the course (00:13:31) to myself. (00:13:33) He goes out tease the pull up on the first hole. Let's go with a drive it goes up in the air comes down and rolls right into the hole for a hole in one in heaven the Angels turn to God and they say master of the universe. This is how you reward a man who disagree. It's the day of atonement by playing golf. Why did you let him get a hole in one? And God says who's he going to tell about it? The terrible nasty secret that you don't find out until it's too late his if you're really focused on finishing ahead of people you drain your life of a lot of the things that make life worth while you find yourself terribly lonely alienated and too late you turn around and say it just wasn't worth it Lily. Tomlin has this wonderful line in one of her routines where she says the trouble with a rat race is even if you win you're still a rat. Let me give you four things that I think one needs to build one's life on so you can look back and feel good about the way you've spent your Years first. The life you feel good about is the life you share with other people the life you whored for yourself grows stale and the life you open up the others remains ever fresh the Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin buber when somebody would say to him boober where is God he was smart enough not to give the conventional answer God is everywhere which is meaningless smart enough not to say God is found at synagogues and churches and holy people Uber said God is found in relationships. When you connect with other people your life takes on meaning back in the 1980s. I don't know if anything parallel was happening in your congregation marriages were breaking up about once or twice a month. I would get a call that a marriage in my congregation had terminated husband and wife were separating. The stories were very often different but a typical story and I would call the husband and I say hey I heard what happened what's going on and he would say to me Rabbi. It's the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life, but I had to do it. This was my last chance to be happy and I would said, okay, where did you get the idea that the way to be happy is to cut yourself off from responsibilities for other people the happiest moments in my life when I realized that there were people who depended on me people who needed me and people who promised to be there for me when I needed them and frankly, I can't think of any sadder moment in life than to wake up one morning and realize that in this whole world nobody cared if I was still there or not true story happened to a friend of mine man in his late 30s recently separated from his wife and kids moved into a an apartment in a singles complex left for work one day and before he left he carefully blow dry his hair trimmed his mustache and very much like what he saw in the mirror he was Convinced his biggest problem. Today would be telling people that they made a mistake asking for his autograph. He's not Tom Selleck. He gets on the bus to go into work and the bus was crowded. He has to stand and he finds himself standing in front of this strikingly attractive young woman who's going into college. He's got a big bag of textbooks on her lap. This girl is so pretty that my friend can't keep his eyes off her the whole trip. He's staring at this girl. One moment. She looks up. She sees this man staring at her their eyes meet for a moment. My friend doesn't know where this is going to lead, but he would like to find out so he gives the young woman his warmest most inviting. How about it smile and the girl nods smiles back at him stands up and offers him her seat. He told me the story afterwards. I said, you know, I don't want to make you feel bad. You were probably her father's age the moral of the story. You're not going to find happiness by going out there on your own you can find happiness by being connected to people our responsibilities to people do not tie us down our responsibilities to people anchor Us in this world and it's only by sharing our lives with other people that our lives become completely human the story. I like to tell and you can have to use your imagination a little bit because you're so far from the ocean but imagine a man sitting out by the shore of the ocean. Let's say on Cape Cod in Massachusetts watching the waves come in and he sees a boy and girl playing on the edge of the water. They're building a sand castle and it's one of these architectural masterpieces with moats and turrets and passageways and they're working on it for half an hour. They're almost finished when you know, what's going to happen big wave comes and knocks it over reduces it to wet mud the manager. Are these kids are going to cry all their hard work has been ruined but they surprised if they don't cry they run up the shore holding hands and laughing and they sit down to build another sand castle and the man realizes what an important lesson these children have just taught him that no matter how smart you are and no matter how hard you work sooner or later that wave is going to come and knock down what you've worked to build up and when that happens only the person who has somebody's hand to hold will be able to laugh at it ingredient number one open your life up to other people to this is going to sound paradoxical but I think I could make a case for it. If you want to feel good about your life. You have to be prepared to welcome pain as part of being alive. We're society. That doesn't do that very well. We are pain phobic. We tell ourselves. If you do it, right? It won't hurt if it hurts take these two new improved bills. You'll feel better in 15 minutes. There is something wrong with us. If we feel pain fact of the matter is feeling pain is one of the ways, you know, you are alive. I remember the young couple who came to see me in my study. There were going to be getting married in June. I was supposed to officiate at the ceremony. We wanted to get to know each other talk about the Jewish wedding ceremony a little bit at one point the prospective bridegroom said to me Rabbi, would you be willing to make one small change in the Jewish wedding ceremony instead of pronouncing us husband and wife till death do us part. Would you pronounce us husband and wife for as long as our love lasts we've talked about this and we've decided if we ever get to the point where we no longer love each other. It's not morally right for us to be stuck with each other. I set them know I'm not going to do that. I said listen, I appreciate where you're coming from and I appreciate the distaste for hypocrisy, which you're speaking. Maybe you saw your parents marriage when you were growing up and you swore you would never end up like that. Maybe you had a friend who trusted someone who was badly hurt by that person or maybe you were badly hurt by someone and you responded by saying I will never let anyone get close to me again where they can hurt me like that, but I said to them what I'm hearing is that you are afraid to commit yourself totally to this relationship because you're afraid it will hurt too much if it doesn't work out. If you move into this marriage and you don't totally unpack if you move into this marriage with an attitude of well, let's try it. If it doesn't work out and just go our separate ways. No hard feelings. I can guarantee it's not going to work out because you're simply not going to care enough to let the relationship survive all those dull and angry days which are inevitably going to come. I talked about the this epidemic of divorces in my congregation. I tell you something I don't worry about adults who go through a divorce they hurt but they survive they discover that a broken heart is like a broken leg and it hurts desperately but little by little heels and one day the pain is gone and you are still there. But I worry about a generation of children who are growing up afraid to love because they've seen how much it hurts when love doesn't work out and these will be the young children who will grow up looking for relationships without commitment looking for work involvement without any sort of loyalty without any sort of lasting commitment to it. They will be experts on what their emotional needs are and totally tone deaf to the needs of the other party because they are afraid to take off the armor and expose themselves to the vulnerability of caring about another person and they don't understand how much of Life they're missing when they go through life anesthetized. These will be the young people who will drive their motorcycles too fast and bungee jump and jump out of airplanes with parachutes and hang glide. And if you ask them, what are you doing? As I have ask them they will tell you as they have told me Rabbi. It's the only time I feel alive and what a terrible commentary that is unlife in God's world that in order to feel alive in order to pierce that armor of anesthesia that they go around with they have to Teeter on the brink of self-destruction just to feel a little bit of fear just to feel something because otherwise they're really not feeling anything at all. We have to teach young people and other people not to be afraid of pain. We have to introduce them to people who have gone through terrible accidents terrible bereavements all sorts of horrible experiences and come out the other side. We have to introduce them to survivors of the Holocaust who came to this country married and started new families, even after they saw what the world had done to their first families. Let these people learn something about the resilience of the human soul and let them be less afraid let them learn that you can cut your hair and your fingernails and it doesn't hurt because those are dead cells you cut into your flesh and it hurts very much and when you feel pain, you know, you are alive one of the ways, you know, those are live cells is that you're capable of hurting we have to teach these people that they are stronger than pain and not to be afraid of it. Third element of the life. You can feel good about the psychoanalyst young said that every human baby is born with the capacity to be male and female. Society takes little boys and teaches them how to be male. You know Boys Don't Cry men don't ask directions. Society takes little girls and teaches them how to be female. You don't need to get good grades. You need to be popular as the result half of what we were potentially born with is never developed and young says when you get to the midpoint of life, that's when you should stop doing what you're already good at go back and fill in all the spaces that were left blank as you were growing up specifically he says midlife is when men have to let their feminist sides emerge and women have to let their masculine sides emerge some years ago. My wife and I saw two movies about a month apart and I was struck by the contrast between them the first one you'll probably remember because it won the Academy Award that year remember Chariots of Fire about the two Runners trying to make the British Olympic team. What struck me about that movie is that the two Heroes of the movie never talk to each other really they never say anything to each other except good luck, but they feel very close because That's how men Bond men burned through competing through entering a world of winners and losers the other movie. I saw was you remember A League of Their Own Tom Hanks and Geena Davis Madonna about professional women baseball players during the war. If you haven't seen the movie. I'm going to spoil it for you before you can get out on video at the end of the movie if you remember Gina Davis who was the best ball player in the league deliberately drops the ball in the last inning of the last game of the World Series so that her sister can be the hero of winning the game instead of her why because her relationship to her sister means more to her than winning the title. I suspect a lot of men walked out of that movies thing boy was that stupid How can you be a professional athlete and deliberately lose a game because you don't want to hurt the feelings of the people on the other team. I mean, can you imagine last year the New York Yankees saying? Why don't we let San Diego win it would mean so much to them. And I suspect a lot of women walk that out movie saying wasn't that touching. So this year you win and next year somebody else wins and you're a question in Trivial Pursuit and nobody remembers who won last year. It's so long ago. But in the meantime, you've broken the heart of somebody you claim to love if we are going to be complete human beings. What each of us has to do is acquire the wisdom of the other 50% of the human race. Men have to learn what women have known all along and women have to learn to do what menacing to be innately good at. It means for example that in midlife men stopped competing and start mentoring that it becomes less important to win two out due to finish ahead and more important to share what you know with younger people coming along that you no longer see them as threats are as Rivals you see them as people you want to share your wisdom with and for women it means in midlife if the first four Decades of your life have been a Chronicle of going from being Somebody's Daughter to being somebody's girlfriend to being somebody's wife to being somebody's mother and it all those 40 odd years. There was never a chance for you to be somebody in your own right? This is when you claim that right and you're not being selfish and you're not being irresponsible you are reaching for wholeness. To gain the wisdom of the other half of the human race to utilize all of the potential that we were born with that's what makes us real people fourth and final ingredient. And this may be the most important one of all to feel good about how you have used your time. You must know that you have made a difference to the world and the good news is to make a difference to the world. You don't have to find the cure for cancer and you don't have to write the Great American novel you make a difference to the world just by doing good things regularly. Let me tell you a story you all know that makes that point you remember in the Bible in the book of Exodus when God leads the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. God determines to work a miracle. So spectacular that nobody who witnesses it will ever doubt his power or his Providence again. What does God do he splits the Red Sea leads the Israelites across on dry land brings the waters back to drown the Egyptian Army. It works blows everybody away everybody. Who's there says wow. The Lord will be my God forever. Read on in the very next chapter of the book of Exodus 3 Days Later three days later these same people are complaining about the itinerary complaining about the accommodations that are like anything. What we learned from that is that forever is a technical term meaning 72 hours. Somebody swears. He'll be grateful to you forever. Some guy promise to love you forever. Hold them to it for 72 hours and don't push it beyond that. God realizes you cannot nourish people tomorrow on the basis of yesterday's Miracle no matter how spectacular yesterday's miracle was it grows stale overnight. So God changes his tactics and instead of one spectacular Miracle once in a generation. God works A Small Miracle every day. He gives Israel the Manna Food grows outside their tent in the morning you go out just like bring it in the morning paper you gather up the food you have enough to feed your family not nearly as impressive as splitting the Red Sea, but because it happens every day. It changes the way people look at life. And this is the power every one of us has to change the world. You want my simple down-home recipe for feeling good about what difference you have made to the world here. It is in one sentence. Three times a week do something nice for somebody. That's all you have to do 3 times a week do something nice for somebody threw a church committee through the Rotary Club through the little league Staffing a hotline for for depressed people calling in late at night. If you're not the organizational type, you know, I suggested this once at a lecture in a woman said, I'm just not comfortable working with groups. What can I do as an individual? So say if you're not comfortable working with groups, maybe you could find a support group of other individuals who aren't comfortable with groups of But you know, you don't have to do it through an organization. You can just be a good neighbor volunteer to do the grocery shopping for somebody who's laid up run carpool for them shovel the snow off their driveways three times a week do something nice writing a check doesn't count. You really have to do it. You're going to tell me you're very crowded schedule. You're too busy. I'm not going to buy that as long as you find time to eat three times a day. As long as you find time for your favorite TV programs. As long as you find time to go to the gym do this instead. It'll make you feel better about yourself faster than going to the gym three times a week do something nice for people you will be astonished how quickly this makes you look differently at the way you relate to the world. You know why I am absolutely convinced. And this is one of the cornerstones of my faith in the same way that our physical bodies are made so that certain kinds of diets and certain kinds of lifestyles are healthy for us and others are toxic and for a little while you can try and get away with fooling mother nature, but not in the long run in exactly the same way. I am convinced our souls are made so that certain kinds of behavior nourish the soul and other kinds of behavior are toxic to our soul. Human beings were made to be cheerful and honest and cooperative. And when we act that way, we feel good hasn't every single one of you had the experience of going out of your way to do somebody a favor and when you've done it you feel so much better lighter happier. You have the sense of yeah. This is how a person should feel. We are meant to be cheerful and honest and Cooperative when we choose to be selfish and deceitful and mean we poison our souls and you know, just like breathing toxic air and eating the wrong foods and getting stuck in in gridlock traffic jams trying to get to work. You may think this is the way people are supposed to live, but you know, you don't have to live that way and now we get to what I promised I would talk about earlier good things happening to bad people. Why do wicked people get away with murder my answer is they don't my answer is you pay for everything you take in life in one currency or another it may not be exposure and humiliation it may not be some sort of terrible disease but you pay for everything you act against the way human beings were made to act and it takes its toll on you think of it this way. Somebody says to me even if the only punishment for the wicked is that they miss out on the satisfaction of being a genuine human being that's punishment enough. Somebody says now wait a minute. I mean if if there's looks wonderful movie that I've never heard of do I feel deprived if I don't go see it. That's not the way it works. What I'm trying to say is something like this and I don't mean to sound callous but a blind person doesn't know what he's not seeing but anyone in this room who has seen a sunset. And anyone in this room who was looked over the lake and seeing the leaves changing color. You got to feel sorry for person who will live his whole life and never experience those things and in a much much stronger way anyone in this room, who knows what it feels like to love and to be loved to forgive and to be forgiven. You got to pity somebody who will live his whole life and never have those feelings for years. I wanted to believe that our souls were made in such a way that good honest Behavior nourish the soul and a few years ago. I found out it's really true. They did an experiment that Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina on type A personalities, you know, what they are the the hard-driving striving success-oriented person who's always doing three things at once and got to come out on top and always wants to make things happen the people for whom they closed door button in elevators was invented. Their hypothesis was these people are so intense and driven. They will make themselves sick. So they rounded up several type A personalities and ran a battery of tests on them and they found that the some were sick and some were healthy. In fact some were healthier than the average but this seemed to be the key if you are a type A personality because you enjoy the satisfaction of making things happen. It makes you feel good to know that you were in charge of something and it worked out. Well, you'll be fine. You'll be healthier than the average person but if you're a type-a personality because you believe it's a jungle out there because you believe that you can't trust anybody and you can't turn your back on anybody and when you meet somebody try and figure out their weakness and get at them, that's the kind of person who makes himself sick because that is not the way human beings Were Meant to behave we were And to be good and truthful and Cooperative with each other and it's only by living that way that we learn to feel good about ourselves and to know that by doing good things regularly. We have this good effect on the world. I started out by saying one of the things American society does that really makes it hard for us to enjoy our lives is this emphasis on winning? Which pits one person against another which compels us to see other people as Rivals. There is a second thing that American society does that with every passing year I get more and more upset with for some reason. It sets the peak of Life at age 25 and everything after that is downhill. If you don't believe me try this little sociological experiment go into a stationary store where they sell Hallmark Greeting cards, look at birthday cards for middle-aged people. I'm not talking about 50 and 60. I'm talking about 35 and 40 year old men and women they are all about loss. You're losing your hair. You're losing your figure. You're losing your Vitality. You're not the person you used to be not only is it depressing? It's not even true. They have sold us this bill of goods, but it's not even true. I don't know how many of you know very much about the personal life of the mystery writer Agatha Christie. You may know that she was married twice and that her second husband was a prominent British archeologist. A member of the House of Lords. A reporter is supposed to have once asked her Miss Christy. What's it like being married to an archaeologist? And she said, oh, it's wonderful the older I get the more interest that he is in me. I'll tell you something. She's right. She's right and you don't have to be an archaeologist feel that way if you think about it for just a moment. It should be obvious that once you get past superficial first impressions of appearances, of course older people are more interesting than younger ones. They have lived longer. They've experienced more they've gone through more this this competitiveness has been leached out of them. This naivete has been left behind. Of course. We are more interesting than young. People are I want to tell you something now listen closely because nobody else in America is going to tell you there's an it's very important for you to know it except for being able to run fast and drink coffee at night. There is no advantage to being young. A few years ago. I got a call from a woman who said she got to high school with me in Brooklyn and our high school class was having their 40th reunions was I interested in attending and I said no way I barely got out that place the first time I'm not going back there again. Do you remember what it was like to be 18 years old and all the concerns you had at 18, you know, will I ever get married and who will I marry and will it work out? And what will I do for a living? And will I be any good at it? Oh my God. Whoa who wants to go back and reopen all those questions? You know what the problem is if we are convinced from the beginning that life is something that gets used up. If we are taught from the time were young that we are born with X number of years to live and with every birthday you cross off one more year that our heart is programmed to beat 2 billion times and with every day we have used up a certain number of those heartbeats. Then of course, we're going to feel bad about getting older about becoming middle-aged about using up those years if we look at life at something that's like a bottle of vintage wine that with every sip the level gets lower and lower to there's almost nothing left in the by the bottle. There were going to be terribly scared of growing old. I'm going to give you another way of looking at it suppose instead of looking at life as something we use up suppose. We look at it as the accumulation of treasure. Life is the accumulation of treasure. So with every passing year that you grow older you have more life than you did the year before because of the new people you've met the books. You've read the places you've traveled to the ideas. You've been exposed to all the personal growth. You have more life than you did a year ago think of it that way and growing older won't scare you think of it that way and women of a certain age won't feel obliged to dye their hair and wear inappropriate Fashions and Men of a certain age will stop learning to run marathons and invite their secretaries out for lunch to to deny that they are getting middle-aged. Then we won't be frightened of it. We can look forward in the same way that a really good book the further you get into it the more it starts to make sense. And only when he get close to the end only then do you understand the significance of something that happened back in chapter 1 and chapter 2 if we could learn to look at life that way You can look forward to what else is coming next. I want to conclude with one last story and draw moral from it. It's the story of the factory that was having a serious problem of shrinkage employee theft people who work there were ripping off the company and walking out with company property and it got to be a major problem. So the company decided they had to do something about it. They hired a security firm and they posted guards at all the exits and when you left at the end of the day you had to open your briefcase empty your pockets prove to them. You weren't smuggling out any company property. Everybody went along with this happily enough except for one guy who insisted on giving them a hard time and every day at quitting time. He would go through the checkpoint with a wheelbarrow full of garbage and the poor security guard have to stand there for half an hour going through all the trash Lee the styrofoam cups, the the food wrappers the apple cores a cigarette butts dirty smelly work. He hated it, but he had to go through. All the trash to make sure the guy wasn't ripping off any company property. He did this once twice the third time. He said I can't take this anymore. I know you're trying to pull something on me. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what every day I go all through this trash looking for something valuable. I never find her. I'll make a deal with you. You tell me what you're pulling and I promise you I won't turn you in because it's simple I'm stealing wheelbarrows. We make that mistake. Sometimes we get to that point in our life where we're looking back even more than we're looking forward and we sift through all the years and all the months that we've lived looking for something valuable to justify Our Lives sifting through all the detritus and all the trash of our days looking for one or two really valuable things to reassure us that our lives have not been wasted and if we can't find them we panic and we're afraid that our lives haven't added up to anything but for the person who really understands what it's meant to live for the person who has been wise enough to open up his or her life to other people to make life meaningful by connecting with other people for the person who has been brave enough to take off the armor and accept pain as part of what it means to be a living human being for the person who has been open enough to fill in the blanks that were left behind as you were growing up and learning. The wisdom of the other half of the human race and for the person who was dedicated enough to make a difference to the world not with one spectacular deed, but with little Deeds of helpfulness done regularly the person who understands what it means to live will come to the conclusion. Your life itself was the reward. Thank you. (00:43:55) Rabbi Harold Kushner speaking this fall at the Academy for Faith exploration sponsored by the Wayzata Community Church. Rabbi Kushner based his lecture on his book. When all you've ever wanted isn't enough. He's also the author of several other books including the bestseller why bad things happen to good people. By the way, if you missed part of a rabbi kushner's remarks will be rebroadcasting them at nine o'clock tonight. If you're still shopping for Christmas, you have just a few hours left, of course, but apparently you're not going to be alone in these last few hours. The malls were packed yesterday in some area retailers were predicting that today Christmas Eve would turn out to be the busiest shopping day of the year this week morning edition's Alex Chadwick took a look at whether we're buying too much stuff, especially for kids a father. I know a man with younger children was baffled by the amount of toys in their lives, so I called a toy expert Gary cross professor at Penn State and author of kid stuff about this sense that kids today have more things than we ever did very often the kid today. We could have a thousand individual toys a thousand toys Professor Krauss backed up a little many toys are more complicated today. He explained with a lot of figures and characters because the so many individual pieces that that this can be a bit of an illusion but children clearly have far more toys today than they did certainly in the 1950s toy glut and gluttony. Our median nerves are twitching. This could be a trend. Let's go see to 6 Out at once simple, Virginia Crossroads a certain shopping mall stands like a fortress of excess at the intersections of more and more Boulevard and Gimme Some Avenue. There are stores here doing good business selling nothing more than containers and hangers and boxes stuff to help you. Keep track of all the things you already have but the anti clutter stores are not that hectic now, no hectic is living at the FAO Schwarz toy store. It's so funny to see the list even a list of change the manager a woman of saintly patients. Her name is Sylvia called her own. I mean you get lists that are like color-coded like printed up on computers, you know, I mean, she means they're printed in different colors on home computers, of course or their faxed off to waiting grandparents. I mean like we have parents that come in like on our shipment days every single week to find out if like what they're looking for is here. Oh right parents. Let's say toys are cocaine and the toy makers and stores are drug cartels then. Are those CDs slouched figures on the street corner passing out samples? Why there's me and look there's you they just go through it so quickly and they can't have enough Jamie a mom. I called in Menlo Park California. Every time I go to the store, I think you know, they have so many things what more could they want and they want it all and I don't know if I feed that or not by giving them so many things maybe Jamie doesn't know maybe she doesn't want to but Professor crossed knows it's part of the way that we connect with our children is by showering them with the wondrous things of the marketplace. Are you comfortable with this? It just doesn't feel right. Somehow it doesn't feel right. And and and I think there are good reasons for that kids get so many things they find it difficult to create attachments to things and then perhaps by analogy to others as well. The other thing of course is that this whole process as much fun as it is doesn't teach Ourselves or our children how to manage our desires I know it sounds terribly Victorian but in an age when there are so many things around us one of the most critical skills that we can learn is to figure out when we don't need something and and when enough is enough jingle bell jingle bell, the trouble is for kids and parents both when it comes to toys. There is no enough growth figures from the toy manufacturers make the defense industry look like well kid stuff in 1980 adult spent six point seven billion dollars on toys for kids by a few years ago that amount had tripled and a consumer survey found more than half of parents bought stuff for their children that the parents hate it. Was it ever like this before? There's no comparison. My kids have a lot more. That's Bruce a dad in Greensboro North Carolina was a lot more disposable I guess or a lot. We all get hyped up about them when we see them on TV or hear hear about him on the radio or something and we race out and get them. But I remember we had we had some toys but we didn't have a tremendous amount. We did more imagination stuff. I think well sighs also remember a lot of time playing Outdoors, he just with other kids, you know, and it didn't, you know, just it was man. We would we would just go I lived in a neighborhood that had a circle and we would just go to the circle and and play so your kids now compared to what you did. They have more toys now than you. What are you doing for Christmas? Well actually were Jewish I beg your pardon. That's okay. But but you can't get away from Christmas, they'll get some toys, you know, in fact they've made their lists the lists again. We're going back to FAO Schwarz and Sylvia called her own. What is hot now? Amazing. Ali would probably be number one. Actually Pokémon will probably be number one because there's so much with in Pokemon Bear in the Big Blue House. He's a big character. Then we have like the Toy Story which I always thought was going to be really big just because it's the sequel to the movie the first movie of the pole Barbie thing amazes me, you know, Jamie the mom from Menlo Park, we've got probably 20 Barbies and a big suitcase and that's the Barbie case and yet they could go to store and each 15 more so I don't get it. It's definitely has something to do with the media. Oh, it's definitely has something to do with the media. Whoops. Suddenly. The Morning Edition action front news team is losing interest in this story the media media, you can tell when a TV commercial is being aired like this year. Let's say the Barbie cash registers where we cash registers were sitting there during summer, you know for like the longest Time until the commercial started to play now. No one can get a body shot with me cash register you can scan the price. Barbie cash register I'm writing a story about toy Commerce and there actually is such a thing as Barbie cash register. Thank you Santa try setting limits that Professor cross the Penn State toy scholar. It may be arbitrary but pick a line of something some kind of toy and just say no to your kids and to yourself, but I think it's also important rather than just simply being a kind of a a block to your children's desires that you give them some Alternatives that you show that there is a Wonder out there perhaps in nature perhaps and a sport or a hobby that that doesn't necessarily require accumulating a huge stack of Pokemon cards or or a whole line of action figures. Do your children have too many toys. I think I think they do. I think that I have too many goods and I suspect most of us do now there's a thought that we could all truly use Merry Christmas and to all a good night in Washington. This is Alex Chadwick NPR news. Just hear those sleigh bells jingling ring ting ting ting to come on. It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you. Well, that's all the time we have today. Thanks for joining us for our Christmas Eve edition of midday today. The producer of our program is Sarah Mayer our assistant producer is care a fig and shoe. I'm Gary. Eichten have yourself a very Merry Christmas and do keep your eyes on the skies. Santa is on his way bringing lots of joy and maybe a few toys just in case you don't have too many yet. We're gliding along with the song of a wintry Fairy Land. Our cheeks are nice and Rosy and comfy cozy. Be a part of the Minnesota Public Radio Time Capsule preserve your thoughts for future Generations. Leave a message at 6'5 1290 1345 or (00:53:28) email us at MPR (00:53:29) dot-org. Please include your address and telephone number. You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. We have a cloudy Sky 13 degrees at Kenner wfm 91.1 Minneapolis. And st. Paul cloudy through the afternoon with a high reaching the low 20s. There is a chance for some light freezing drizzle tonight. So take care overnight low in the 20s partly cloudy and Mild tomorrow.