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Today's
quotation:
The
world is too big for us, too much is going on, too many
crimes, too much violence and excitement. Try as you
will, you get behind in the race in spite of
yourself. It's a constant strain to keep pace. . .
and still, you lose ground. Science empties its
discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them
in hopeless bewilderment. The political world is
news seen rapidly, you're out of breath trying to keep
pace with who's in and who's out. Everything is high
pressure. Human nature can't endure much more.
Atlantic
Journal
June 16, 1883
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Today's
Meditation:
I
love the passage above. Rarely have I seen
such pessimism, such clearly illogical thinking, such a
focus on the negative aspects of everyday elements of
life. If you read the passage closely, you'll see a
person who has allowed him or herself to become
overwhelmed by everything that's going on, and who then
has generalized their own feelings to everyone else.
How
often have you seen things in your life or at work or in
the family as going very well, only to have a discussion
with someone who sees things as going poorly? We
leave these conversations feeling somehow that things are
going wrong, no matter what we felt to start with.
And so what if scientists keep announcing their
discoveries? I'm certainly not going to
"stagger beneath them in hopeless
bewilderment." I'd much rather read or hear
about them and say, "Wow, that's interesting," and
then get back to focusing on my life.
Life
always offers us much more to focus on than we need to
focus on or than we're able to focus on. It's
important that we choose carefully just what we allow into
our minds on a deep level, and what we keep on the
periphery. If we allow our neighbor's family
problems to preoccupy us, then we're adding a new set of
worries to our lives. We must let others do what
they do and be what they are, and we must be ready to step
in and help a situation when necessary, but we also must
keep a clear idea of just what belongs in our minds.
Usually, if it's something we can't control or something
that's out of our realm of influence, we're much better
off not letting it be something that will get us out of
breath or that will overwhelm us.
The
last 120 years since this article was published have proved not only
that human nature can endure more, but also that the world
hasn't changed as much as we think it has. How we
live our lives is up to us and the way we react to input,
and which input we consider important enough to worry
about or to focus on strongly.
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