ESSENTIALLY WORKING TOGETHER FOR A BETTER YOU

Here’s a little story.

I had a dream one night.

I saw myself standing on bare dry ground not a mountain or tree in sight -- nothing there but an odd-looking weighing scale. Odd with huge and I say huge, empty plates. Then out of nowhere appeared an old but distinguished looking man with long gray beard that oddly touched the ground. He looked at me with nary an expression on his old wisdom-lined face and raised his right hand in the air. I followed his hand, looked, but saw nothing there. Then he lowered it pointing to the right empty plate on the scale. Soon enough the plate began to fill with the events of my life – the good memories of my life. One by one it filled the plate now almost overflowing. I smiled at the thought of those wonderful moments of the past I dare not ever forget. The scale tipped down apparently under the weight of its load and thereby raised the opposite empty plate high.

I waited for the old man; I felt the show wasn’t finished yet. The opposite plate was still empty. As if reading my thoughts, he raised his left hand the same way he did with his right. It seemed like he was gesturing something or to someone unseen to begin. And similarly when he pointed to the left empty plate, it right away began to fill with the other side of my past – the sad memories there. As it piled one after the other on the plate, I felt my tears fall. The hurt and pain I could not deny despite leaving it all behind with time. I noticed then that the scale stood with both plates evenly at that point. It stayed there so still.

Then he spoke.

“Both the good and the bad times of your life stand equal on the scale. Neither is greater or lesser than the other; both stand invaluable in the work that they do in you. Be grateful for the good that happens and ... be humble in your misfortunes when they occur because both essentially equally work together to create a better ---you.”

The End.

TAKE CHANCES, MAKE MISTAKES, GROW

Why is it that whenever the words chances or mistakes are spoken of most people would cringe hearing it? Now give some reason why that is so. No? You can’t? Okay then, I’ll tell you why – it’s because we’ve been made to believe that ‘sticking your head out isn’t good for your sanity’. Haven’t heard that before? I wonder why because that’s what we’ve been doing all along - all of this time - all of our life. Have you noticed that anything which might or tend to crumple our perceived notions of tranquility or.. those which we think would work to extricate us from our comfort zones we vehemently disallow to encroach on our personal space and time. Yes, we don't. It’s avoided with extreme fear and anathema albeit not understanding the reasons at all or not wanting to. ‘Play it safe’ ‘don’t rock the boat’ ‘Make mistakes and you’re a goner’ ‘Err and you’ll suffer’ are but a few odd things we tell ourselves or we hear from people who say they ‘know’. But do they really?

What I know is this – the only genuine way to true learning is by making or experiencing mistakes and sticking our heads out letting something hit it hard so that we can come to our senses at last. Oh I don’t mean that literally of course, don’t get hurt that way, but of course you know what I mean, right? The best lessons are learned from the strife or struggle wherein we get our hands really dirty and our brains spilled out all over the place and our hearts ricocheting here there and everywhere. Only through heartaches and pain from battles fought tenaciously do we get that which we should be learning from life and own it and finally use it.

"Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being Brave." -- Mary Tyler Moore

PASS QUICKLY THROUGH YOUR TROUBLES

Problems, trials, difficulties, struggles, misfortunes, thorns or whatever else it is called but life surely has a good stack of them to keep us at our wit’s end. Whether they are gigantic or minute these problems can prick us where it can hurt us most -- And how we hurt! The thing is we can’t seem to get us out of there and I wonder why. Is it because being so overwhelmed by it we get dumbstruck and stuck to our shoes where we are? Or… because in our muddled up brains we can’t see anything beyond it? Or…that something got lost inside us and we don’t know how to get it back? Or…might it be that we have hang on doggedly to an idea that someone or something will come soon and pluck us out of our misery? To the latter I’ll say maybe and maybe not.

You do know that ‘life is what you make of it’, as a saying goes. So whether to welter in misery or get on the first plane out of there pronto, so to speak, is all up to you. The longer you stay in a situation where it can hurt you the harder it will hurt you – the harder it will harm you. And soon you will find yourself begin to lose the power to change. You certainly don’t want that, do you? -Because change and only change is your relief and deliverance from your perceived misery.

"Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us." -- Voltaire