Medium is My Secret Spiritual Teacher

Here are 4 valuable lessons I‘ve learned

I appreciate the lessons I’ve learned here.

Lessons in Patience

Medium is a master teacher. It excels in finding new ways to test our patience. As yet another system change rolls out we have the opportunity to react with frustration, or we can choose another way.

The practice of patience is adopting a calm and gentle manner in the face of situations out of your control. Here, we learn to pause before we act. When we take the time to assess the possibilities available to us, the right choices become clear.

We learn to communicate with tolerance and patience.

Keeping our goal in front of us helps us see what steps are needed to progress toward it. Even small steps are worthwhile.

We learn to maintain professional composure and remain composed as we work through the changes.

Lessons in Perseverance

We learn perseverance, as we gain an understanding that no system is perfect. We patiently report the problems and wait for the overworked helpdesk to get to our request.

Sometimes we have had to repeat our requests for assistance. While we wait, we have learned that continuing to work toward our goals is important.

When things are going well it’s easy to keep going. When things aren’t working, that’s when we really learn the lesson.

Embrace your mistakes and find the takeaway hidden inside.

When we have to stick with something even when it’s difficult, we learn to continue writing. Trying new ways to engage our readership helps us move toward our goals. We focus on improving with every article we write.

When we have an appreciation for the road we are on it’s an easier journey. Appreciation of where we are and how far we have come is important. Sure, it’s great to focus on future goals, but it’s also important to appreciate where we are right now.

Testing Our Awareness

Awareness is the ability to remain open to the wonder of the universe.

We are learning to become aware of times when we’re obsessing over statistics instead of focusing on improving. Developing discipline and working toward our goals is key.

When the algorithm suspends our account for no apparent reason we are encouraged to become more aware of our actions. After we’ve responded with a helpdesk query, we take a moment to reflect.

Recognize the variety and diversity that exists here. Understand how our opinion is simply a perspective. Remain open and be ready to learn something new.

There may be a lesson in this break. If we look closely, we can find the silver lining.

Lessons in Community

The support of fellow writers is invaluable.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to discover how important they are to us. When the Medium algorithm decided my account was fake, it shut it down. When my friends here heard what happened, they were quick to stand by my side.

When we work together in a community of writers we get to know them. When we share our struggles in our stories, we gain a deeper understanding of each other.

How you respond to someone’s vulnerable moments reveals your caring. Being supportive is a choice available to all of us. Allowance for other points of view opens up possibilities for understanding.

Community is a source of inspiration. I’m surrounded by amazing poets, tellers of tales, and journalists that can spin stories that entice and engage. They inspire me to try harder.

When I see someone stand in their despair, owning their shit, I am inspired by the way they remain strong and true to their beliefs.

Encouragement is important.

I watch writers serve each other in the way they take the time to read each other's stories. We give hugs and hearts and comments. We hold each other up.

Lessons are available in the experiences we have every day. If we stay open to possibility and allow others to have a point of view that is different from our own, we create expansion.

The expansion brings more awareness and more opportunities for learning.

And after all, that’s why we’re here.

Keywords- Writing on Medium is a learning opportunity. Writing, lessons, mastery, medium, community, expansion, awareness, patience, acceptance.