I have this obsessive-compulsive habit of checking door handles, light switches, faucet handles, and other “on/off” or “open/close” switches to make sure that I’m not leaking energy somehow. It helps me to feel secure.

I’m getting some fascinating lessons about real security, though. Several months ago, the light switch in a brand-new floor lamp got worn out within only a few months after we bought it because of my compulsive checking. And today I had to replace both washers in our bathroom faucet because they were cracked and leaking like crazy — again, probably from my compulsively “checking” and pushing them repeatedly to make sure that they were shut off.

So there it is: The more I push and shove to solidify my sense of security, the more brittle and pressured that security becomes, and the more liable it is to break. Security born of pressure is ultimately related to a sense that the world must be made safe through violence, that it can’t be trusted; and this is a dead end. Security ultimately can’t be bought with mindless force. Real security involves seeing what is present and responding in a balanced way.

Who knew that broken lamps and leaky faucets could teach such lessons?

I’ve been thinking lately about personal responsibility in relationships. Briefly, this is the idea that whatever emotions a person experiences, they are ultimately that person’s responsibility, and no one else’s. So that if I am angry about something, in order to be healthy rather than codependent, I must acknowledge that I am the ultimate source of my anger. This awareness gives me the power to control my own feelings, and lifts that burden from the other person, who is then freed to respond in a way that’s more closely aligned with their true self. It’s a situation of optimal freedom for both people.

In a recent conflict with a friend, he angrily accused me of not taking responsibility for my feelings, for blaming him. That is an argument that I’ve used on others before, and so I gave it a lot of thought. What, I wonder, does it mean to be responsible? If I say, “You hurt me,” does that mean that I’m not being responsible? Does it mean that I’m blaming you for hurting me, rather than accepting that I’m the one responsible for the pain?

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I’m easily overwhelmed by information. I start trying to block it out — I’m pretty sensitive and can only handle so much at a time. But when I do start to sort things out, sometimes the information becomes nothing short of magic. The fascinating and exciting thing for me is to organize that seemingly random information into a cohesive framework that suddenly comes alive with depth and meaning.

So it is with acupuncture points. I can really see the skeptics’ perspective: How can thrusting a needle into a particular point possibly have any beneficial effect? I don’t have an answer yet that will please the hard-core scientist; but as I explore a little bit, it begins to make more sense to me, in a broad, intuitive way.

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This story is excerpted from a chapter in Tom Brown, Jr.’s book The Vision. It has stayed with me since the first time I read it, and I used it in a class presentation on the Chinese Metal Element this afternoon. I thought I would share it here as well. It is memorable and powerful.

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As I near the end of my first semester, I begin to look back on the last couple of years, when I spent a good deal of energy considering what field I wanted to go into, and then, which school I wanted to enroll in.

Right now, I have no regrets.

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Winter is here, but it doesn’t feel like winter when I still occasionally get bitten by mosquitoes and sometimes it’s still T-shirt weather.

Though I have a lot to do for school, it’s the weekend so I can take a breath and step back and think about a broader perspective. From time to time I wonder about my path in life: what I want to accomplish, how I want to live.

Three years ago I really had no idea what I would be doing next. I didn’t even know who I wanted to be in the world.

As I go through school and watch my wife build her practice, it’s easy to just go with the current of events. Everything is set up by society and the expectations of others. The next step is to buy a house, get that mortgage, have some kids, etc. But I wonder what exactly I want from life.

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