St. Theresa's Prayer

"May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of us."

Optimistic Balance

Interesting to read this article about the power of staying positive, and realize how many "but/balancing" thoughts go through my mind about it. Once again, "healthy balance" seems to be the best words for the overall concept to strive for, then you just have to try to define those "simple" words of "healthy" and "balance" in a complex world! The thought crossed my mind that "the unbalanced optimist is the one killed trying to ski through the revolving door with the most optimistic view of the possible outcome". Few extremes (if any) are widely practical. That being said, I would still describe myself as an optimist in general, and a realist when it is more practical. Hmm, interesting to split it up and ask what areas one is optimistic about relative to others (I'm very optimistic about people, but not about stressful situations)...

The Book of Life

I've always wanted to be the author of the best "book about life" available. I always bemoaned the fact that there is no good book of this sort (my opinion, of course), and frequently thought there should be. I wanted a book to help people through the hardest times in life, to help them find happiness in life, to help them find meaning to their life, to help them accomplish what they want to accomplish, and to be genuinely good people.

I think I always knew that there could be no perfect book like this, and as I've grown older, that thought has solidified for me -- what is right and most helpful for one person at one time is not necessarily right or helpful for another person or even that same person at a different time. Maybe I'll save more discussion of that concept for another post.

What got me started thinking about this today was some of the humorous aspects of my thoughts about writing such a book of life. One was that I always liked to joke that I wanted to write a book about life as soon as I was done, because then I would have learned as much as possible about it!

Also humorous has been my efforts at thinking of what the best title for the book would be, and here are some of my top choices so far:

Life (as I know it)
Life: Your Mileage Will Vary
Life: Nobody Gets Out Alive
Life: We Apologize for the Inconvenience
The Cliff Notes of Life

Questions to start 2009

Questions on my mind to start the year:

How many days, hours, minutes, seconds will you waste?
How many excuses will you make?
How many times will fear stop you from taking action?
How many times will you put your interests behind those of all others present?
How many times will you act from assumptions?
How many times will you protect others from who you are?
How many times will you choose the easy instead of the right for you?
How many times will you sell yourself short?
How many times will you not take care of yourself?
How many times will you hide your human traits?
How many times will you degrade yourself?
How many times will you accept the actions of others?
How many times will you gravitate towards ambiguity over clarity?
How many times will you beat yourself up for past actions?
How many times can you sacrifice?
How will you know if time is wasted?
How will you know if a justification is worthwhile?
How will you what fear would have saved you from?
How will you know if your assumptions are correct?
How will you know who deserves or needs protection most?
How will you know what is healthiest for you?
How will you know how much you are worth?
How will you know when to share yourself with the world?
How will you know what the effects of your actions will be?
How will you know how to judge others?
How will you know what is best or right?
How will you know what the future holds?
How will you know the outcome of your choices?
How will you live with your past actions?
Who are you?
Who do you want to grow to be?
How much time do you have to answer these questions?

Oh, the humanity. Oh, the humanity.

I am a Life Philosopher

I see one of my most dominant characteristics to be the feeling of being a Life Philosopher, and that means that I am almost always thinking about things. The thought crossed my mind the other night that "I am a life philosopher, which means that I think about life so much that it can easily get in the way of living that life". The practice of meditation has recently (within the last year or so) been explored by me, and has presented me with a great challenge -- that of being able to consciously choose not to follow spontaneous thoughts when they occur. This is incredibly difficult for me, but I am continuing to explore it, because it seems important to me. It is rare for me not to want to take a step back from whatever I am doing and ponder about it -- about the intentions, the implications, the predecessor conditions and the possible results. I find I am constantly in a conflict of thinking versus doing, wandering back and forth between these two ends of a spectrum of behaviors.

There is a quote by Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living". To that I've always added my own: "The un-lived life is not worth examining". I had never seen that written by anyone else when I thought it, but I'm certainly not the only one to have turned it around that way (you can find it on bumper stickers). I just saw a quote by Mark Twain that is similar: "The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all". Mark Twain does have a lot of quotes that resonate with me!

Absence

I have been absent from this forum for a long time. I intend to write some thoughts much more frequently from now on.

The Beginning of Knowledge

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
- Frank Herbert