John B. Izzo - Second Innocence: Rediscovering Joy and Wonder; A Guide to Renewal in Work Relations and Daily Life

This is a book about continually rediscovering the wonder and joy of being human. It is about seeing the world with the perspective of goodness, about making a choice to age without becoming cynical or jaded. It is a book for those who are old and those who are young, for those who have lost the zest for life and those who want to maintain it. It is a reminder for all of us of truths we already know but too often forget. It is a guide for maintaining hope and fighting cynicism. In it I suggest that, in a time when it would be easy to become cynical, we need to claim our innocence more than ever. And this innocence cannot deny the hard truths about life but must somehow incorporate them and allow us to choose to claim hope nonetheless.

I began writing this book when I was eight years old and, considering that I am now forty-five, you could say that makes me a pretty darn slow writer. It was in the summer of my eighth year that I had my first important lesson on living a purposeful, happy life.

On a hot, steamy August afternoon I was playing baseball in the streets outside our home in Staten Island, New York, when my mother called me to come home. Knowing it was too early for dinner, I protested, but she repeated the request with greater urgency. Once I was inside the house, she told me that my thirty-six-year-old father had died of a heart attack that afternoon. For a moment, I stood in silence. Then I asked to finish my game. I had not seen my father in six years and feelings of deep loss would not occur for many years.

Yet the lessons of that summer day were not lost on me. Though just a boy, I realized then that life was short, that our time on Earth is limited. Each day was a gift and could be lived fully or squandered. I also realized that it was wise to be intentional about the choices we make in our lives, that many people, such as my father, had missed much of the joy life offers.

Over the last thirty or so years, first as a minister, then as a business consultant, and finally as a writer and retreat leader, I have met thousands of people trying to find purpose and meaning in their lives, trying to figure out how to maintain loving relationships in an age of instant gratification, struggling to keep their faith in a world where cruelty and hardship challenge a belief in goodness, trying to renew their love for work. In those encounters I have seen many people who have lost their innocence about life and about themselves. The symptoms of this loss of innocence take many forms: cynicism about self and others, burnout at work, disillusionment in relationships, a loss of faith in God, a diminishment of hope, sarcasm about politics and organizations, and a more subtle sense that the wonder of daily living is slipping away. I have also met many people whose lives demonstrate that some spirits never fade, that it is possible to keep that sense of purpose and wonderat work, in love, or in faithand I think we all desire to be one of those people.

Somewhere along my own path of life, I lost a piece of my own innocence, a quality of spirit that the eight-year-old child possessed: an unbounded faith in the universe, an ability to be present and enjoy lifes simple pleasures, an unshakable conviction that my actions could contribute to a better world, a pair of eyes to appreciate the beauty all around me and, most of all, a deep contentment. It was not so much that I was discouraged but that I sensed there was a deeper experience of renewal available to each of us.

This book is about what I have observed and discovered in the years since that day my father died, and what I believe to be the path to a more purposeful, joyful life, one filled with wonder and hope.

When this book was almost finished, I became aware that much of what I wrote is not new or earth-shattering, and I am glad of that. I dont believe it is ignorance of truths that keeps most of us from the full experience of human life; it is those truths we know but do not practice.

And now, as I look at the final manuscript, the best test of whether it was worth all the effort is this: I wish my father could read my book, and I wish I could have read it twenty years ago.

Rather than give you a formula for achieving second innocence, I will share with you stories, a collection of experiences from my life and the lives of people I have met over the last thirty years that illustrate the ways that we continually rediscover innocence in our lives. It is a very subjective journey, and, like all matters of the heart, such subjectivity is the only path to joy and wonder.

It is organized around finding renewal in four key areas of our lives: Daily life, work, relationships, and faith. These divisions are somewhat artificial, because certain core principles seem to bring us back to innocence and wonder in each area of living. There may be times when you may wonder what the chapters have in common or why one chapter has followed the next? What they all have in common is to show us the many ways in which we make the choice to find joy and wonder, to claim the ideal of hope. Each chapter provides a window into the many contexts in which we make the choice between innocence and cynicism.

Allow the stories in each section to speak their wisdom to you in whatever part of your life they find resonance. Dont worry about what section you are in, the messages will naturally find the parts of your life that are in need of them.