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Today's
Meditation:
One
of the things that took me a very long time to learn in
life is that other people are very often wrong, lazy, or
just plain silly. As a teacher, there are certain
accepted ways that things "should be
done." It took me a while to learn, though,
that most of those ways simply aren't effective in helping
students to learn. They may make the teacher's life
easier, but they certainly don't make for better
teaching. In the Army, we often got orders to do
dumb things-- but they were orders, so we had to do them.
I now trust myself, and when I do look outside myself for
advice or instruction, I'm very careful to look at what I
receive critically. I want to be self-reliant, but I
also want to be good at what I do. When I have a
relationship issue, I usually know what's wrong (though I
may not want to admit it, because it may be me), and if
I'm honest with myself and willing to take a risk, I can
deal with the issue effectively. If I were to rely
on an outer authority such as a counselor or a friend or
family member, the solution will not be authentic to me--
it will be someone else's fix. A good counselor,
after all, helps us to find our own answers rather than
telling us what we should do.
If I constantly submit to the authority of others, then
there's little chance that I'm going to live a truly
authentic life. If I always do "what I'm
told," then I'm not going to make decisions on my own
that will guide me in directions that are best for me--
I'll be moving in directions that are best or most
convenient for other people. I need to be
self-reliant if I'm going to be able to lead an authentic
life and become the person I was truly meant to be.
It's tempting to let others make the decisions and guide
us along in our lives. In some situations, it's even
"normal" for us to do so. Parents guide
children, and some people-- especially women-- are expected
to let their husbands make the truly important decisions
for the family. Sometimes that's fine, but there
will come a day when we know that if we want to be
authentically ourselves, it's important that we start to
rely on ourselves to make the decisions and take the
actions that will guide our own lives.
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