Beside a playmate who loves to laugh, probably the umbrella benefit is the opportunity to explore within oneself the principle that, to me, most determines the well-being of any person or institution: How we define our world actually creates our world.

Understandably, this is often a deal-breaker for many people, because it requires the willingness to entertain the possibility that we are responsible for our every feeling and thought. Being ready to take that leap is no small deal. Is it possible that no one has ever irritated us? That no one has ever disappointed us? That no one has ever made us happy? I say yes it is possible, more than possible, though it sure sounds counter-intuitive. Of all addictions, perhaps the most deadly is our addiction to the belief that other people and outside circumstances are responsible for how we feel.

One of the big discoveries in this lifetime for me has been that no person or event has ever made me anything. Certain people or situations may trigger a reaction, but the “cause” of that reaction, the cause of my every opinion, judgment, blame, joy, gratitude, you name it, is how I define my world. Ignorance is my only problem.

Awakening to how we define reality, its consequences, and how we might change what we feel needs changing, is at the heart of being human, if you ask me—and that awakening has no finish line.

The willingness to assume responsibility for our every response to life, regardless of how well we do it or how graceful we are at it, is the first step in an ever-new adventure of self-discovery, one that includes the joys of both ordeal and victory over one’s self. Kind of like climbing Mt. Everest, or being a healthy parent. Which is why I’m particularly grateful for the wisdom of the late Marshall Rosenberg: Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. So long as we need to be good at things to be happy, we’re asleep.

The opportunity to explore a definition of health that I find vital to every person, institution, family, friendship, community and pee-wee team since the dawn of time. Plus the practices essential to cultivating that health.

Two words: growing resilience.

Resilience is the ability to respond in a constructive, life-affirming manner to whatever comes our way.

Growing this ability, of course, is a never-ending process. We’ve been at it since birth (many would say lifetimes), and we’ll be at it with our last breath. The big opportunity is to grow resilience ever-more consciously.

Which means, wild as it sounds, that our last breath can be our healthiest. One of ever-deeper kindness, compassion and understanding.

There are four. And sometimes I wonder if, fundamentally, these are the only four things we humans are ever really doing under all the hats we wear and roles we play.

Managing fear. Without that it’s very hard to respond well to much of anything. For instance, anger in any of its many forms including blame and sarcasm is invariably a consequence of unmanaged fear. The point isn’t to do away with fear, but to appreciate it as a spur to take loving action that frees us from its limiting presence.

Learning from our experience. Our experience is not just our best teacher; it is our only teacher. We know nothing of life except our experience of it. And whatever that experience may be, our opinion of it is grounded in how we define reality. The Buddha, when asked the difference between the enlightened and the unenlightened person, said that the enlightened person is like a warrior who is hit with an arrow; and the unenlightened person is like a warrior who is hit with two: the second being their dislike of the first one.

Gaining ever-deeper understanding of what we cannot live without. Which is to say, what is essential—in our lives overall, and in the present moment, however gruesome, glorious, or just plain nuts. Imagine being able to walk into any  situation and identify with reasonable confidence the next action that must take place in order for a healthy outcome to manifest itself.

Aligning commitments with action, and action with commitments. Making a commitment without a corresponding plan of action is a form of self-sabotage. As is taking action that is not in harmony with who we are committed to being or die trying. A person with a peaceful heart in service to others, say.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the most rewarding life imaginable can be created through the ever-deeper dance with just two questions:

What am I trying to accomplish that I can control? (The last four words are the killers.)

How would I know a healthy outcome if I saw one?

The very first time someone asked me that, without thinking I said, “I’m a very gifted person.” By gifted, I didn’t mean talented. I meant someone who has been given innumerable gifts: so many of them heartbreaking and humbling, so many reminding me of the inherent beauty of who we all truly are.

This has led me to feel that every experience is a sacred gift to help us grow our capacity to love until we realize that, indeed, love is all we are, for it is all the universe is.

My experience says we are not perishable humans in a perishable world, but souls on a path leading to inevitable conscious oneness with all of existence. The worldly drama of our lives is merely a theater in which that journey takes place.

How that view shapes the texture of my life, if you’re interested, can be found in my essays. And, of course, in my novel, “Mirror Man: A Metaphysical Adventure in the Spirit of the Universe—Playful Loving Deep.”

Or perhaps in having a chat, if that’s what the universe arranges.

For me, the best. At 27, I was the oldest freshman Amherst College had ever admitted, and very likely the only one to have graduated next-to-last in his high school class. And within that story, both before Amherst and after, is my education.

The full tale, naturally, is too big for here. But I’ll at least attempt to set the stage. I was born with a kiss from God on my heart, and my overriding interest (actually compulsion) was to discover the spirit of that kiss in the world. For years I met virtually no one who could point me in that direction, despite their good intentions.

The attitude toward me by the adult world, beginning with my parents, was commonplace, based in large measure on my behavior, not what was under that behavior. If I did this, I’d be loved; if I did that, I wouldn’t. Somehow, I knew that was inconsistent with the spirit of the universe.

In grammar school, I wondered why we were there. Why are we studying this? And who are you, the teacher, deserving of special respect? These were not conscious questions, of course, but today I know they lived beneath my feeling of being alien. I didn’t find the world mean-spirited. But getting someone to do something by threatening to cause them pain if they didn’t do it was incomprehensible to my heart.

Along about 5th grade, for reasons a mystery to me since it wasn’t a conscious decision, I could no longer do things that didn’t inspire me, or at least interest me. If I wasn’t stirred by a thing, sustained focus was impossible. And the more something was pushed on me, the more resistant I was. It was painful to hear that I wasn’t living up to my potential. I’d do my best to crack the nut of a thing I didn’t care for, but never successfully.

As I say, these were not conscious thoughts. I was just following some inner guidance that I wasn’t even really aware of. If I’d had the language I would have said, “I want my mind and heart to be set on fire.” And since that wasn’t happening through anyone I’d met so far, I had to find my own way.

As if by divine dispensation, that way, more than any other, was the land outside my backdoor: endless acres of fields, woodlands, vineyards, orchards, streams, waterfalls, and the virtually unlimited expanse of one of New York’s Finger Lakes. My closest playmate a mile away, I spent hours and days and weeks over several years anchored by enormous solitude. The land was a grandmother, wise and unconditionally loving like the spirit residing in the innermost place in my heart. Without even knowing it, daydreaming was my primary activity: staring at clouds, wandering the woods, floating in my rowboat, even throwing a pinky rubber ball against the barn door as I pitched the seventh game of the World Series for the Yankees all summer long.

Animal, vegetable, mineral, and the legacy of those who had called this land home since forever set my imagination ablaze. Why are things the way they are? How did they get that way? Who or what is God in all of this? It wasn’t so much thinking these questions as feeling their answers within me. I didn’t know at the time that I was being introduced to the interconnectedness of all things, and with that their sacredness.

I spent two and a half years of high school in a seminary hoping someone would introduce me to God. That that didn’t happen was the universe’s way of telling me I was looking in the wrong direction: outside myself rather than within, the direction grandmother earth had already awakened.

In the decade after high school, my adventures in self-discovery included Special Forces, creator of a children’s radio program, talk-show host, and TV Sports Director. I was a news announcer at one of Boston’s big radio/television stations when I decided I needed the discipline of a good academic education. Little did I know the universe was saying to me: “Your school experience so far has left you wondering just how capable you are. You have things to accomplish in this life, and your doubts are getting in your way. So go to a fancy college, spend four years hanging out with some of the smartest folks on the planet, realize your brain works just fine, get over yourself, and get on with your life.” When I met the director of admissions at Amherst, after an enjoyable get acquainted chat he asked how I did in high school and nearly fell out of his chair laughing when I told him. Then he asked the best questions: Why? And what have you been doing since?

The first official function upon entering Amherst is the president’s reception. When I introduced myself to president Bill Ward, he said, “Oh, you’re the old guy. Welcome. You’re where you belong. Enjoy yourself.”

That was some 50 years ago, and today I’ve known for quite some time that it was far more than Amherst’s president speaking to me. It was that kiss of God since birth and every day since, even when I’ve lost my bearings, saying, “You’re where you belong. Enjoy yourself.”