The instructor for our Thursday morning Stretch and Balance class always begins with some breathing exercises.  During these exercises, she asks us to set an intention for the day.  It can be a word or phrase, like “calm” or “peace” or “I feel grounded”.  It’s something you can return to during the class or the rest of the day to bring you back to that sense of focus.  This week, my intention was the word “Intention.”  I’ve been mulling over what prompted me to commit to the word Intention for this essay as I finished up last time writing on Humility.  As I downward-dogged and tree-posed, I thought about what the word Intention evokes in me, and that’s what we are going to discuss today.

The first meaning of the word “intention” is “intention as mindfulness.”  That’s what our Stretch and Balance instructor means when she asks us to sent an intention.  It means being present.  It means clearing the mind of what else you have going on and focusing on the class and on yourself in the class.  This meaning of intention came up in Shabbat services on Saturday when the rabbi minded me of the meaning of kavanah, which also means “intention”.  In this case, it was about being present during prayer that morning and not sitting there thinking about everything I had to do that day.  Mindful living has been a struggle for me for most of my life and I find myself needing regular reminders almost every day.  Like so many people I was stuck in an endless cycle of “I’ll be happy when….”  Sometimes the issue was that I was in an unhappy relationship.  Sometimes I was unhappy at work.  Sometimes I was just unhappy in general.  Instead of doing the often-difficult work of figuring out exactly why I was unhappy, I pointed to some current stressor and said to myself, “You’ll be happy when this stressor has passed.”  There are times, of course, when that was kind of true.  Maybe I was preparing for a big presentation at work or I had a big project at home that had to get done.  Anything that threw me off of my preferred schedule was a stressor and when I got past that stressor, I was indeed happier.  For much of my life, though, that stress relief was only temporary.  The niggling discomfort would bubble up again and I’d do a quick search for the next near-term stressor that I could blame.

There were times, though, that I did dig a little deeper, when I directly faced my unhappiness at work and, much later, the issues that were leading me to make really bad choices in my personal life.  Sometimes I needed professional help to keep me focused on what the real issues were; sometimes I just took a deep breath and made myself face it because I just couldn’t ignore whatever “it” was anymore.  And that’s what brings us to the second meaning of “intention”—“intention” as “purpose”.  When the rabbi discussed kavanah on Saturday, she talked about “intention” as being present and mindful, but also in its sense of “purpose”.  To do something, anything, with intention means to give it your full attention (as above) and to really know why you are doing it.  There is an outcome expected with an activity.  What is it?  And are you moving closer to what you want to achieve by doing that particular thing?  When I’m in Shabbat services, it’s about a purposeful reflection on my life.  Am I living the way I want to live?  Am I embodying the person I want to be?  Am I being the partner I want to be?  How am I doing at meeting my own expectations and where should I be putting in more effort?  This is NOT a performance evaluation.  It’s a gut check and a reset.

Intention as purpose has become way more important now that I’ve retired.  Those approaching or just entering retirement often talk about “what’s my new purpose?”  Part of that angst is driven by decades in the professional world where your efforts are geared toward the goals set out in your annual objectives or bounded by specific deliverables.  Your purpose in retirement can be similar or totally different.  Some people get involved in community work that has similar deadlines and specific deliverables and I bet that feels both comfortable and stressful.  Others focus on family needs, like babysitting grandchildren or caring for an aging parent.  To a certain degree, though, we all start to face one particular sense of purpose:  now that I have the time to really focus on it, how can I become the sort of person I’ve always wanted to be?  How can I live a life of kindness and compassion toward those around me, be they family, friends, or strangers?  What does that look like on a daily basis?  What does “achievement” look like?  Am I doing enough?  What, exactly, should I be doing?  What is my sense of purpose?  I don’t have a lot of guidance on this one, partly because it’s an individual journey but mostly because I’m still grappling with this myself.  I feel like I should be doing “more” but I don’t know what that “more” is nor why I haven’t been able to articulate it.  So, I keep going to Stretch and Balance and, occasionally, synagogue and I try to be mindful and present and purposeful and figure it out.  What I end up doing is writing a lot about grace and compassion toward yourself and others.  And that bring us to the third meaning of “intention”:  intention behind actions and words.

I do not want to wade into the Culture Wars here, but I am going to make some observations on what I see in the world around me.  I think most will agree that we seem to have lost some sense of civility as of late which has only been intensified by fear of the “other”.  These feelings have been exacerbated by the ranting of pearl-clutching of public figures.  It honestly pisses me off that in the name of gaining power and donations, members of both of our main ideological camps try to demonize, dehumanize, and divide us through fear.  That’s why I write so much about grace and compassion, about giving people the benefit of the doubt and assuming a benevolent intention.  I’m not going to give examples here because whatever I choose will be triggering to somebody and, honestly, that’s part of the problem.  Let me just describe what I try to do.  If someone says something that I find offensive or does something that I find inappropriate, I try to first assume a benevolent intention.  I used the example in previous essays about aggressive or distracted driving.  Sometimes someone is being an ass, yes, but most of the time they are not.  In any case, there is usually not anything I can do about it. I can choose to assume a positive intention and move on or I can assume a negative intention and seethe.

I’m not saying we should totally let people off of the hook when they say something inappropriate or even offensive.  I’m saying we should first assume benevolent intent but then do our best to help the person learn from the incident.  If they refuse to accept that they should rethink their behavior, then cancel away! But if their infraction was unintentional and you can help them grow a little, give them that chance.  Assume a positive intention.  Give them a little grace.  And try not to be judgmental.