18 March 2024
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Simple and Profound
Thoughts
(from Simple
and Profound) |
You give
but little when you give of your possessions. It is
when you give of your heart that you truly give.
-Khalil
Gibran |
It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes
more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed
your own. -Jessamyn West
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Nothing is worth more than this day. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
Liberty exists
in proportion to wholesome restraint. -Daniel Webster |
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Giving
back to Life
Leo Buscaglia
What
is essential, I think, is to live life in wonder.
All this magic that's around us, but we let it go
by! In Asia they say life is a great river, and it
will flow, no matter what you do or don't do. We can
decide to flow with the river, and live in peace and joy
and love, or we can decide to battle it, and live in agony
and despair. But the river doesn't care. Life
doesn't care. In either case, all of our streams run
into the same sea. It's up to you.
What
is essential is not only to take from life, but it is
essential that you put something back into it.
We've
forgotten our responsibility to give. I have several
charities to which I give but, because I send it to
"other lands," I can't deduct from my income
tax. "You're crazy!" How sad.
We've really forgotten how to give. I give love
because I love you, not because I expect you to love
back. If I give expecting something in return, I'm
sure to be unhappy. When you say good morning to
someone, it's because you volitionally want to say it, not
because you expect something back. If you expect
something back and they don't say it, then you're bummed
out, "I knew I shouldn't have said good
morning."
I
go out sometimes--and really, we've reached this
point--and say good morning and somebody turns to me and
says, "Do I know you?" And I say,
"No, but wouldn't it be nice?" Sometimes
they say no. That's their privilege. But I did
my thing. I said hello. They did their
thing, saying hello back or not.
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If we
don't expect, we have all things, says Buddha. Love
because you will to love. Give because you will
to give. Flowers bloom because they must, not
because there are people fawning over them! You live
and love because you will. Because you must.
I
had a girl come into my office this week who sat there for
almost an hour talking about "me, me, me!"
This is a quote: "I'm not sure what I want from
life." Finally, this good old nondirective
counselor shouted out, "What the hell are you giving
to Life!? Every day you take something from the
ground, you take from the air, you take from the
beauty--what are you giving back?" We never
think about what we're putting back, do we?
While
writing a book on counseling, I spent three months alone
in northern California in a little cabin. Every day
I would go for long, long walks along the Smith River into
the redwoods, and spend hours. One day I got into a
grove of giant redwoods and saw a sign against one of
those enormous redwoods that some ranger had scribbled out
explaining the life cycle of a redwood, probably without
realizing how really beautiful it was. It showed
that when the redwood was this big, Buddha was born, when
it was this tall, Jesus was born, when it was so big,
Hannibal crossed the Alps, and on and on.
In
the last paragraph he said, "Even when a tree dies
and lies on the earth's surface, all is not over.
Decomposers begin their job of breaking the tree down
slowly. As the years go by the tree blends into the
soil, returning all it took so that others may
live." Isn't that outrageous? And
immediately I thought this could be applied to human
beings. At least in the end we will have to give
something! That wonderful, continuous cycle.
Maybe Leo Rosten was right when he said that the purpose
of life is simply to count, to matter, to have it make
some difference that you lived at all. Maybe that's
essential.
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The
Five Secrets You Must Discover before You Die
John Izzo
What
are the secrets to happiness and meaning? Why do some
people find a deep sense of purpose while they are here
and die with few regrets while others end their lives
bitter and disappointed?
About
two years ago I set out to answer that question by asking
several thousand people to identify the one person they
knew who had lived a long life and found true happiness.
It seemed to me that each of us knows at least one person
who achieved true success. After receiving over 1,000
nominations, I interviewed 235 people from the age of
59-106 (who had over 18,000 years of life experience)
asking them to reflect back on their lives: What brought
happiness? What gave meaning? What did they regret? What
did they wish they had learned sooner? What did not matter
in the end?
These
“wise elders” were an incredibly diverse group ranging
from a town barber to CEO’s, from poets to native
chiefs, Holocaust survivors to war veterans, and
represented all the major religions and cultures of our
society. My goal was not to interview famous people but to
identify ordinary
people who had found extraordinary
happiness. What I discovered were five clear themes of
what it means to live a happy and meaningful life (and to
die with a smile on your face). In my new book, The
Five Secrets You Must Discover before You Die, I
share the five true paths to finding meaning in life and
show how we can live these secrets.
The
first secret I learned from these interviews is Be
true to yourself. Each one of us is on a unique
human journey and the path to true happiness is to be true
to ourselves. This means knowing what brings us happiness
and focusing our life on what matters to us. It means
reflecting on a regular basis as to whether our life fits
our soul. In our daily lives it means knowing what brings
us joy and ensuring that we fill our life with the right
elements. It also means following our unique destiny. One
of the people I interviewed was a Latino woman who talked
about the importance of following our “destina.” The
idea is that each of us has a path that is most true to
us, which is not so much a destination as a way we are
meant to be in the world. For example, I am a teacher and
philosopher by nature and when I stay close to that path I
experience true joy.
Being
true to self often means drowning out other voices that
would ask us to live their dreams instead of ours. Ron, a
gifted chiropractor, told me the story of how he planned
to become a medical doctor but when he visited a
chiropractor shortly before starting medical school he
discovered a profession that connected to his true self.
“Others told me I was crazy but I knew it was my
path.” He told me that to follow your heart you
must have the “discipline to listen and the courage to
follow.” This means asking if the life we are living is
true to our deepest sense of self and it sometimes
requires a step of courage to follow our soul. Are you
being true to yourself right now?
The
second secret I learned is to Leave
No Regrets. It seems to me that what we fear most
as we age is not death, but rather to come to the end of
our life feeling that we never truly lived. The saddest
words ever spoken at the end of life are “I wish I
had…” Tom, a native healer, told me that the great
fear at the end of life is “the great incompleteness;
that you did not do what you came here to do.” One of
the most interesting things I discovered in talking to 235
wise people is that almost no one regretted risks they
took that did not work out and most said they wished they
had risked more. When I asked these people about major
crossroads in their lives, many of them talked about
taking risks-sometimes large and sometimes small-which
wound up bringing great happiness. One of the keys to
moving towards what we want instead of what we fear is to
focus on the best possible result and not the worst. Are
you going for what you truly want in your life or acting
with fear?
Become
Love was the third secret I learned from these
people. Not surprisingly, the greatest source of happiness
for people and the largest place of regret had to do with
people. What I discovered is that those who made people a
priority in their lives and who developed deep personal
relationships found true happiness. Many of them told me
that “things” rarely brought true joy whereas family
and friends brought lasting happiness. One way to focus on
relationships is to get intentional goals for our personal
relationships just like we do in our careers.
Yet
the most interesting thing I uncovered is that being a
loving person, the choice to give love, is even more
important in determining happiness than getting it. These
people talked to me about the importance of choosing love
and kindness as your way in the world. They taught me that
when we choose to be a loving person we find a deep sense
of meaning in life.
The
fourth secret was to Live
the Moment. One of the most common things people
told me was how fast life goes by and how important it is
to enjoy each moment. One woman told me “when you are
young you think sixty years is an incredibly long time but
when you get there you realize it was only a moment.”
Among the secrets they shared were how important it is to
live in the present, to fully enjoy whatever experience
you are having (and not to wish you were somewhere else),
and to live with gratitude focusing on what you are
grateful for rather than what you don’t have. They told
me that we have no power over the past and little power
over the future. Many of them said that whenever you find
yourself saying “I will be happy when or I will be happy
if” that it is important to remember that happiness is a
choice we make inside. One woman told me: “You have to
stop judging your life and start living your life. Stop
keeping score trying to decide if you are winning. Instead
live each day fully and stay in the moment.” Are you
living with gratitude right now, focusing on enjoying your
life rather than judging it?
The
fifth and final secret was to Give
More Than You Take. When I asked people what gave
their life the greatest meaning, people told me again and
again people that being of service and knowing that you
made things better because you were here was by far the
greatest source of meaning. I learned that whether in
career or personal life, that it is what we give not what
we take that gives life meaning. Many of them also
reminded me that we have little control over what we get
from the world every day (whether people will love us,
whether we will win the lottery, etc.) but we have
complete control over what we give to the world (whether
we choose to be kind, charitable, and to give to others).
These people reminded me that everything we take from the
world dies with us, but everything we give to the world
gets recycled. A wise woman named Susan told me that
“when we are young we cry for ourselves but as we age we
learn to cry for the world.” Indeed all the spiritual
traditions remind us that true happiness comes from
focusing on being of service and in the process joy finds
us. Are you focused on giving or getting each day?
What
I also discovered is that it is not enough to know the
secrets, we must live them. One man told me “many of us
know what is important but it is not enough to know, you
have to put these things into practice.” These people
taught me a great deal about how to live the secrets as
well and I share many of their techniques in the book. One
of my favorites was sixty-four year old Joel who told me
about how he reminds himself each day to live the moment.
“When I wake up the first thing I do is say a prayer
thanking God and the universe that I get to live one more
day and I pray that I will treat it as a gift. At night,
just before I go to bed, I have a time of meditation and
remember all the things that I am grateful for that day
and ask for one more day.”
Someone
once told me “if you want to live a happy life; ask
someone who has lived one.” This past year I had the
privilege to sit at the feet of 235 of the wisest people I
have ever met and I was amazed how clear they were on what
mattered, what didn’t matter, and how each of us can
create a life of meaning and happiness.
* * * * *
Copyright John B Izzo, the best-selling author of Second
Innocence and host of the public television series The
Five Things You Must Discover Before You Die.
Holding advanced degrees in religion and psychology, Izzo
has spoken to over one million people on four continents
about living more purposeful lives.
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And so taking
the long way home through the market I slow my pace
down. It doesn't come naturally. My legs are programmed to trot
briskly and my arms to pump up and down like pistons, but I force
myself to stroll past the stalls and pavement cafes. To enjoy just
being somewhere, rather than rushing from somewhere, to somewhere.
Inhaling deep lungfuls of air, instead of my usual shallow breaths.
I
take a moment to just stop and look around me. And smile to myself.
For the first time in a long time, I can, quite literally, smell the
coffee.
Alexandra Potter
The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather
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No Fear!
Imagine that-- being a spirit means that we have
nothing to fear. It's hard to conceive of, isn't
it? Especially since so many of our actions and
decisions, so much of what we do and think and feel,
is based on fear. It's really quite astonishing
to think of being fearless, when all is said and done,
and it seems quite impossible. But it's a simple
fact: when we see ourselves as spirits,
spiritual beings who are here having a human
experience, there simply is nothing to fear.
Let me explain, because it really sounds too simple
and too good to be true. To explain well, we
need to think of the things that we're afraid
of. We fear other people's judgment, we fear
running out of money, we fear losing our jobs, we fear
failure, we fear rejection, we fear pain, we fear
disease, we fear death, we fear loss, we fear others
taking advantage of us. And that's enough to
start with. But let's think about those fears,
and how strongly tied they are to our experiences here
as human beings. We know in our depths that
these fears are somewhat irrational, but we rarely
think about why they may be so-- because they are
tied to our experiences here, and are not at all tied
to who we are as spiritual beings.
Of course, that's easy to say. But what
does it really mean to us?
It almost seems like a cop-out, doesn't it?
"I don't have to worry about paying my bills
because I'm an eternal spirit and my bills don't
matter on that level." And many people do
use the concept as an excuse for their own negligence
or irresponsible behavior. But looking at
ourselves as spirits is not an effort to shirk
responsibility; on the contrary, once we recognize
ourselves as spirits, we face an even higher level of
responsibility because we known that we have a purpose
or three for being here, and irresponsible behavior
can sabotage our efforts to fulfill that purpose or
those purposes.
So much of our fear is fear of loss, and much is fear
of judgment. Neither of those things matter,
though, when we embrace our spiritual reality.
To an eternal being, the loss of something temporal
like a relationship or a possession or a job or even a
house may be extremely painful, but it's not something
that we can't get over. We know that part of
what we're learning here is how to deal with
adversity, so all of our losses are part of our
lessons-- and with each loss that we have to deal with,
our learning grows deeper, so our knowledge and wisdom
grow deeper as well.
But other people might judge me if I do this!
That's okay-- let them judge. One of the true
benchmarks of true wisdom is the ability to do what we
know needs to be done without being concerned about
how others will react. If it needs to be done,
it needs to be done, right? If it needs to be
said, it needs to be said. And if I really like
this jacket even though I know my friends will make
fun of it, then the jacket needs to be worn, doesn't
it? On the day you pass from this world, another
person's judgment is not going to be there in your
mind-- unless you allowed that judgment to keep you
from doing something important to you, and in that
case, you'll be remembering it as the cause of the
regret that you're feeling.
As spiritual beings, we also know that miracles do
happen, but much of the fear we feel as humans is due
to the fact that we've stopped believing in miracles,
choosing instead to believe in the logical/rational
nature of the brain that's inside of our heads.
The brain is an amazing instrument, it's true, but
only when used in tandem with a spirit-- by itself,
it's pretty useless. It does allow us to do some
pretty cool things and to figure out some pretty
important concepts, but we also depend upon it far too
much, even allowing it sometimes to be more important
to us than our spirits are, and that, my friends, is a
huge mistake. Logic is important, but there are
plenty of things that are much, much more important,
like love and peace of mind and heart.
We fear being unloved. That's our brain taking
in evidence and misinterpreting it, coming to the
conclusion that we are unlovable. That's simply
not true. You and I are loved deeply and fully
by the God that created us-- whatever you perceive that
God to be. You are loved by other spirits, even
if they have allowed their humanness to interfere with
their ability to express that love. Don't allow
their lack of ability to express their love to keep
you from feeling their love. You know it's
there--don't allow that brain of yours to convince you
somehow that it's not. Your fear of being
unloved is unfounded, and when you approach the world
from the perspective of who you are as a spirit,
you'll know that love is there even when others can't
see it.
Cast away your fear. It serves no purpose most
of the time. (And the fear I'm talking about is
not the same as the fear of danger that can keep you
out of dangerous situations-- you understand that, I'm
sure!) Allow your spirit to shine through your
humanness, and you'll find that your life becomes
something different, something brighter, something
much richer and deeper and fuller.
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The
path of awakening
is not about
becoming
who you are. Rather
it is
about
unbecoming
who you are not.
Leonard
Jacobson
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The primitive, physical, functional
pattern of the morning of life, the active years
before forty or fifty, is outlived. But there is
still the afternoon opening up, which one can spend
not in the feverish pace of the morning but in having
time at last for those intellectual, cultural, and
spiritual activities that were pushed aside in the
heat of the race. We Americans, with our
terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material
success, certainly tend to belittle the afternoon of
life and even pretend that it never comes. We
push the clock back and try to prolong the morning,
overreaching and overstraining ourselves in the
unnatural effort. We do not succeed, of
course. We cannot compete with our sons and
daughters. And what a struggle it is to race
with these overactive and under-wise adults! In
our breathless attempts we often miss the flowering
that waits for afternoon.
For is it not possible that middle age can be looked
upon as a period of second flowering, second growth,
even a kind of second adolescence? It is true
that society in general does not help one accept this
interpretation of the second half of life. And
therefore this period of expanding is often tragically
misunderstood. Many people never climb above the
plateau of forty-to-fifty. The signs that
presage growth, so similar, it seems to me, to those
in early adolescence: discontent, restlessness,
doubt, despair, longing, and interpreted falsely as
signs of decay. In youth one does not as often
misinterpret the signs; one accepts them, quite
rightly, as growing pains. One takes them
seriously, listens to them, follows where they
lead. One is afraid. Naturally. Who
is not afraid of pure space--that breath-taking empty
space of an open door? But despite fear, one
goes through to the room beyond.
But in middle age, because of the false assumption
that it is a period of decline, one interprets
these life-signs, paradoxically, as signs of
approaching death. Instead of facing them, one
runs away; one escapes--into depressions, nervous
breakdowns, drink, love affairs, or frantic,
thoughtless, fruitless overwork. Anything,
rather than face them. Anything, rather than
stand still and learn from them. One tries to
cure the signs of growth, to exorcise them, as if they
were devils, when really they might be angels of
annunciation.
Angels of annunciation of what? Of a new stage
in living when, having shed many of the physical
struggles, the worldly ambitions, the material
encumbrances of active life, one might be free to
fulfill the neglected side of one's self. One
might be free for growth of mind, heart, and talent;
free at last for spiritual growth; free of the
clamping sunrise shell. Beautiful as it was, it
was still a closed world one had to outgrow.
Anne
Morrow Lindbergh
Gift
from the Sea
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Most
people enter into relationships with an eye toward what
they can
get
out of them,
rather than what they can put into
them. The purpose of a
relationship is to decide
what part of
yourself you'd like to see "show up,"
not
what part of another
you can
capture and hold. The purpose of a
relationship is not
to
have another who might
complete you; but to have
another
with whom you might share your
completeness.
Neale
Donald Walsch
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