Your Vision Is Clear When You Look into Your Heart

Carl Jung said “Your vision will be clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakens.” We all like to believe that we are awakened. We hope we are awakened, revived and invigorated all the time. Some of us get invigorated experiencing playing sports or ballroom dancing. I know every time I think of me dancing once again someday in the not too far future; I get an injection of true hope and excitement. Others get stimulated by thinking about a future fun event happening to them or a social occasion soon like a wedding, a new baby in the family being born, going on a trip or just even going to a play, a baseball or football game or a party. Whatever invigorates you is truly a blessing. A blessing of doing something pleasant and enjoying it. I know of some adults and a few children who had fun recently going to a live wrestling event. It was enjoyable and it is an event that takes you away from everyday living and duties; and you enjoy the scene there and it is a pleasant, innocuous event for the viewers. I know of people who frequent baseball games and even when our Orioles the year before last had been a real losing team for years; these loyal fans went often and even when the team lost, the fans had a night away from all daily events. They loved their Orioles and though the stands got less and less viewers, the hearty, loyal people kept coming back. The vision they had for the team evolved into great happiness last season when they turned around and we became winners. Now this season starting this week gives lots of hope to these faithful tried and true participants in a night or day of fun. We surely loved our Ravens and we were rewarded up to the sky with a Super Bowl championship. What an awakening that was and the aura and spirit of those days will not leave us forever. It is really nice to have a dream for now, for later, for tomorrow and I know people who get up in the morning and they truly believe that “today will be an unbelievable day.” It is not easy to think that line, but many do. It is better to feel that way than to believe that today will be a bad day. I know people who wait for the mail to be delivered and when it is, they get disappointed that nothing relevant was there except the invoices for the money they spent this month and that they charged to their credit cards. I do not know what they were expecting. Was it perhaps an invitation to a party or a wedding, to a graduation of their loved one from high school or college or was it acceptance to some organization? I remember once many years ago, when we were applying to become a member of a restaurant type social club which was like a country club without a golf course or a tennis court or swim club. They said it was hard to get in; you had to know someone because it discriminated against certain religious groups. So I dropped by and asked for an application and she said she would mail it to me. It arrived and I filled it out with the deposit required to join. It was nothing but a high class dinner place that featured dancing almost every night with a small orchestra. We were in the height of our ballroom dancing hobby and I thought that if we ate dinner there and then we could dance for a few hours; it would be delightful. You had to fill out about your hobbies, your job, your address and you had to have a reference of a member there to acknowledge that you were a decent person. I did not know any members there at that time, I just wanted to join, and dance and eat all in the same venue. I made the mistake of putting down that one of my accomplishments was being the vice-president of our Sunday school for the kids which was Jewish. I got back in the mail my deposit and a line saying that membership was full now and that I should apply next year. I mentioned this to one of my dancer friends and they said it was ridiculous and they would speak on our behalf to the committee, because they were members there for many years. About three days later, I get a call from the office at the club, telling me to come by for my admission cards and to bring my deposit and they were happy to welcome me to be a member. I should have declined because all of a sudden we were acceptable whereas a week before we were not, because they were filled up with members. I decided to not do that because what I wanted was to dance and eat at the same place and now it was happening to me. Funny thing was we were welcomed and we danced and ate there for about two years and they went out of business due to lack of members and their rent being raised. What goes around comes around and I was satisfied that I got in there and I used the facilities to practice our social dancing and we had fun too and the food was quite good. It was a wrong thing discriminating against us in the first place, I know because of religion, but I felt I won because I did get in and we got to do what we wanted in the first place, even though someone did not want us in the beginning. Sometimes, we have to put aside snubs, snickers, cold shoulders and not be ‘wanted’ and look at the overall benefit we may have from continuing on in something we desire. It hurts but we get over it and we persevere and when we attain what we want, we have to enjoy the success of trying to right a wrong. I felt that by joining when they ‘wanted’ me, we won out and perhaps they achieved something, by realizing that discrimination is wrong. When I was told at age fourteen in Miami Beach, Florida, when I got on a bus to go to the beach (I was a visitor there at my step-aunt’s home for a month) that I must sit in the front of the bus and not the back, I could not fight back. I was a teen on a vacation in a new city, away from my folks at home here in Baltimore, I had to do what I was told or else I would have been dismissed from the bus. At the restaurant/club, I told someone about being rejected for membership and they immediately as a long time member stepped in and righted the situation. There was about thirty year’s difference from the bus incident to the club incident. So my vision was clearer at the later age and I looked into my heart and I did not take no for an answer and I did get into the club I wanted. As a teen, I had no one to speak up for me on the bus; I had to rely on my teen thoughts and needs. It is a satisfactory feeling to accomplish winnings on discrimination and to no longer be a victim. A winner is much more beautiful and the feeling you receive awakens your soul too. When you win, maybe the other person, club or organization does have a feeling that they looked into their heart and they feel good because they have been awakened. ELITA SOHMER CLAYMAN