Friday, July 31, 2009
AN EARLY MORNING WISDOM WALK
I look up and see the road I will be walking on stretching out before me. At this starting point of my one-hour-walk, the road I see is quite smooth wide and paved. As I go farther down it, the road changes its terrain. Cracked and uneven in some parts, blotched with pebbles, stones, and rocks in another, and strewn with nature’s mess --- bird droppings, dogs’ shit, fallen leaves and fruits rotting on the ground. I must look like a funny sight skipping over the shit or zigzagging my way through, over, or around the mess.
Doesn’t that remind you so much of life – this life journey we each embark on? Sometimes we get it fun and pleasurable; at times it becomes so disjointed and utterly aggravating with odd situations; and then in some again it gives us the darn annoying and maddening circumstances which try our patience and test our resolve. We get it all, don’t we, in this uneven terrain we travel on. But when faced with such challenges, I fall back on the famous words of Michael Jordan ---
"Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."
There’s so much I can see in that walk, so much like life itself. But uncannily when I get to the end of my hike and am back home where I started, I get this feeling that nothing has ended but simply stands on temporary ‘freeze’ -- poised to resume again with the next morning walk. And that’s what happens on my next walk. The walk comes to life again with fresh observations, insights, perceptions, and learning. It’s never the same experience every time. Always something new unfolds itself before my eyes. It pays to pay attention.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
PERFECTION IS ITS OWN END
What’s perfection? It’s an end. Maybe somebody else’s better description of perfection will come to mind but this strikes home for me.
Doesn’t perfection also mean excellence, faultlessness, flawlessness? That’s quite an attractive bunch of words indeed and it seems to have a power of its own the way it pushes many to want it for themselves. At all cost sometimes.
Is it good? I don’t know. People will have their reasons to want it; it’s all a matter of choice. But I think that it’s nothing more than the end of a challenge, a dream, a goal, a journey, growth, learning, ambition, of life.
Perfection when achieved would put an end to countless long hours – days – months or years of toiling over data and reports, the excitement of putting together an impossible project, of hearts pounding wondering if you’ve made it or not.. and so much more. All those things would be all gone because everything would be in its perfect place. What else would there be to do? In short, it ends the chase and everything it would entail for a person after a dream.
What challenge is there left in or with perfection?
Even a perfect human being can be quite a bore. There would be nothing more to discover, to be surprised with, or to be interested in anew. There would be no learning; he (or she) would be so predictable. Even in relationships. And God for him --- would be nothing but a comic book character like superman.
That could be said of things and stuff too. If things we used in our daily lives were perfect, what need would there be for invention, creativity, innovation, vision, imagination, improvement? What need would there be for dreams?
"Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person." -- Dr. David M. Burns