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11 March 2024
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Simple and Profound
Thoughts
(from Simple
and Profound) |
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Now and
then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and
just be happy. -unattributed
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Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for
they enkindle and melt the soul. -Teresa of Avila |
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Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns;
I am thankful that thorns have roses. -Alphonse Karr |
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in
religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a
friend. -Thomas Jefferson
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Always
Have Fun in All Ways
Bill Resler
People
ask me why it is I continue to coach high school girls
basketball despite the fact that my daughters are grown
and that the job takes up a considerable amount of
time. It certainly isn't for the money. I
could make more money mowing lawns in a summer than I do
as a high school girls basketball coach. If a person
coaches high school girls basketball for money or fame,
they're insane. Good coaches devote so many hours of
their lives solely because they love the players they
teach. They know that the true payoff doesn't come
from a winning on-court feat--it comes years after the
girls graduate from high school, when I see them walking
tall and strong and I know they gained much of their
confidence through the life lessons they learned on the
court. Without a doubt, I coach for the love of the
game, but I also coach because it gives me the opportunity
to pass on the important lessons I've learned to all of
the wonderful students under my watch. . . .
I
know that in order for my players to get the most out of
their basketball seasons, they must be able to own their
own turf--and this translates to their lives off the
court, too. In Roughrider land, the basketball key
is our home. We will share our home with teammates,
but not with opponents. When an opponent flashes
through the key, we will smash them. We run a drill
called "Smash the Flash," which teaches the
girls that no one is allowed in our key and any opponent
who does so will get knocked to the hardwood. As the
girls often say, "Not in our
kitchen."
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Owning
the actual basketball court is important, but it
represents just one part of a player's turf. When
players learn to work with teammates while controlling
their turf, they're practicing skills that will help them
deal with future life experiences.
When
kids are young, their parents are their primary
educators. Most parents understand that as their
little ones grow up, they need to be given more and more
space as they edge towards independence. Parents
need to understand that high school sports provide an
environment where their kids can learn to assert
themselves and grow as individuals. But in order for
that to happen, young athletes must be allowed to take the
helm themselves, and navigate unexplored waters using
their own steering mechanisms, without parental
involvement. . . .
There
is one guiding principle that pushes my life and that
drives all of these lessons: always have fun in
all ways. Every other teaching standard and life
lesson flows from this key philosophy. I believe
that if your life isn't fun, you should change it.
Every person views fun in their own way, but not everyone
pursues it as their paramount principle. It's
unlikely that everyone is comfortable with placing
"always have fun" at the top of their life-goals
list, but for me, there is no other course. For
those of you who disagree, take a moment to consider that
placing fun on the highest pedestal can make it easier to
be in the moment, even when you're facing a truly
difficult and challenging situation.
All
of the lessons I've taught the Roughriders through the
years are important. But I feel that employing a
teaching style that utilizes fun aspects when possible is
incredibly helpful, especially when dealing with
confidence boosting. Much of my coaching comes
sprinkled with wicked sarcasm and impish pranks. I
believe that to be effective, I must create an aura of
unpredictability, so during practice I spout out crazy
comments at random times. I do this for two
reasons: first, to keep them alert, and most
important, to remind them that we must always have fun in
all ways. . . .
As
I've reflected on my eight seasons as Roosevelt's coach
and considered all that I've accomplished, which is
something I rarely do, I honestly don't care about
Roosevelt's win-loss record or how many championships
we've won. More than any statistic, I care about the
lessons my players learn from the experience, and how they
will utilize those lessons decades after the final buzzer
of their basketball careers. What I value most is
knowing that I've made a positive impact on the lives of
many teenagers. My players, and the moments they
have created, have brought me more fun than I can fit into
words.
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thoughts and ideas on fun
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Love
Ralph Waldo Trine
Our good
friend, Henry Drummond, in one of his most beautiful and
valuable little works, says--and how admirably and how
truly!--that “Love is the greatest thing in the
world.” Have you this greatest thing? Yes.
How, then, does it manifest itself? In kindliness,
in helpfulness, in service to those around you? If
so, well and good, you have it. If not, then I
suspect that what you have been calling love is something
else; and you have indeed been greatly fooled. In
fact, I am sure it is; for if it does not manifest itself
in this way, it cannot be true love, for this is the one
grand and never-failing test. Love is the statics,
helpfulness and service the dynamics, the former necessary
to the latter, but the latter the more powerful, as action
is always more powerful than potentiality; and, were it
not for the dynamics, the statics might as well not
be. Helpfulness: kindliness, service, is but the
expression of love. It is love in action; and unless
love thus manifests itself in action, it is an indication
that it is of that weak and sickly nature that needs
exercise, growth, and development, that it may grow and
become strong, healthy, vigorous, and true, instead of
remaining a little, weak, indefinite, sentimental
something or nothing.
It was
but yesterday that I heard one of the world's greatest
thinkers and speakers, one of our keenest observers of
human affairs, state as his opinion that selfishness is
the root of all evil. Now, if it is possible for any
one thing to be the root of all evil, then I think there
is a world of truth in the statement. But, leaving
out of account for the present purpose whether it is true
or not, it certainly is true that anyone who cannot get
beyond self robs their life of its chief charms, and more,
defeats the very ends they have in view.
It is a
well-known law in the natural world about us that whatever
has not use, that whatever serves no purpose, shrivels
up. So it is a law of our own being that they who
make themselves of no use, of no service to the great body
of mankind, who are concerned only with their own small
self, find that self, small as is, growing smaller and
smaller, and those finer and better and grander qualities
of their nature, those that give the chief charm and
happiness to life, shrivelling up. Such a one lives,
keeps constant company with their own diminutive and
stunted self; while those who, forgetting self, make the
object of their lives service, helpfulness, and kindliness
to others, find their whole nature growing and expanding,
themselves becoming large-hearted, magnanimous, kind,
loving, sympathetic, joyous, and happy, their life
becoming rich and beautiful. For instead of their
own little life alone they have entered into and have part
in a hundred, a thousand, in countless numbers of other
lives; and every success, every joy, every happiness
coming to each of these comes as such to themselves, for
they have a part in each and all. And thus it is
that one becomes a prince among men, a queen among women.
Why, one
of the very fundamental principles of life is so much
love, so much love in return; so much love, so much
growth; so much love, so much power; so much love, so much
life--strong, healthy, rich, exulting, and abounding
life. The world is beginning to realize the fact
that love, instead of being a mere indefinite something,
is a vital and living force, the same as electricity is a
force, though perhaps of a different nature. The
same great fact we are learning in regard to thought--that
thoughts are things, that thoughts are forces, the most
vital and powerful in the universe, that they have
form and substance and power, the quality of the power
determined as it is by the quality of the life in whose
organism the thoughts are engendered; and so, when a
thought is given birth to, it does not end there, but
takes form, and as a force it goes out and has its effect
upon other minds and lives, the effect being determined by
its intensity and the quality of the prevailing emotions,
and also by the emotions dominating the person at the time
the thoughts are engendered and given form.
Science,
while demonstrating the great facts it is today
demonstrating in connection with the mind in its relations
to and effects upon the body, is also finding from the
very laboratory experiments that each particular kind of
thought and emotion has its own peculiar qualities, and
hence its own peculiar effects or influences; and these it
is classifying with scientific accuracy. A very
general classification in just a word would be those of a
higher and those of a lower nature.
Some of
the chief ones among those of the lower nature are anger,
hatred, jealousy, malice, rage. Their effect,
especially when violent, is to emit a poisonous substance
into the system, or rather, to set up a corroding
influence which transforms the healthy and life-giving
secretions of the body into the poisonous and the
destructive. When one, for example, is dominated,
even if for but a moment, by a passion of anger or rage,
there is set up in the system what might be justly termed
a bodily thunderstorm, which has the effect of souring or
corroding the normal and healthy secretions of the body
and making them so that instead of life-giving they become
poisonous. This, if indulged in to any extent,
sooner or later induces the form of disease that this
particular state of mind and emotion or passion gives
birth to; and it in turn becomes chronic.
We shall
ultimately find, as we are beginning to so rapidly today,
that practically all disease has its origin in perverted
mental states or emotions; that anger, hatred, fear,
worry, jealousy, lust, as well as all milder forms of
perverted mental states and emotions, has each its own
peculiar poisoning effects, and induces each its own
peculiar form of disease, for all life is from within
out. Then some of the chief ones belonging to the
other class mental states and emotions of the higher
nature are love, sympathy, benevolence, kindliness, and
good cheer. These are the natural and the normal;
and their effect, when habitually entertained, is to
stimulate a vital, healthy, bounding, purifying, and
life-giving action, the exact opposite of the others; and
these very forces, set into a bounding activity, will in
time counteract and heal the disease-giving effects of
their opposites. Their effects upon the countenance
and features in inducing the highest beauty that can dwell
there are also marked and all-powerful. So much,
then, in regard to the effects of one's thought forces
upon the self. A word more in regard to their
effects upon others.
Our
prevailing thought forces determine the mental atmosphere
we create around us, and all who come within its influence
are affected in one way or another, according to the
quality of that atmosphere; and though they may not always
get the exact thoughts, they nevertheless get the effects
of the emotions dominating the originator of the thoughts,
and hence the creator of this particular mental
atmosphere; and the more sensitively organized the person,
the more sensitive he or she is to this atmosphere, even
at times to getting the exact and very thoughts. So
even in this the prophecy is beginning to be fulfilled,
“There is nothing hid that shall not be revealed.”
If the
thought forces sent out by any particular life are those
of hatred or jealousy or malice or fault-finding or
criticism or scorn, these same thought forces are aroused
and sent back from others, so that one is affected not
only by reason of the unpleasantness of having such
thoughts from others, but they also in turn affect one's
own mental states, and through these one’s own bodily
conditions, so that, so far as even the welfare of self is
concerned, the indulgence in thoughts and emotions of this
nature are most expensive, most detrimental, most
destructive.
If, on
the other hand, the thought forces sent out be those of
love, of sympathy, of kindliness, of cheer and goodwill,
these same forces are aroused and sent back, so that their
pleasant, ennobling, warming, and life-giving effects one
feels and is influenced by; and so again, so far even as
the welfare of self is concerned, there is nothing more
desirable, more valuable and life-giving. There
comes from others, then, exactly what one sends to, and
hence calls forth from them. And would we have
all the world love us, we must first then love all the
world--merely a great scientific fact. Why is it
that all people instinctively dislike and shun the little,
the mean, the self-centered, the selfish, while all the
world instinctively, irresistibly, loves and longs for the
company of the great-hearted, the tender-hearted, the
loving, the magnanimous, the sympathetic, the brave?
The mere answer because will not satisfy.
There is a deep, scientific reason for it; either this, or
it is not true.
Much has
been said, much written, in regard to what some have been
pleased to call personal magnetism, but which, as is so
commonly true in cases of this kind, is even today but
little understood. But to my mind personal magnetism
in its true sense, and as distinguished from what may be
termed purely animal magnetism, is nothing more nor less
than the thought forces sent out by a great-hearted,
tender-hearted, magnanimous, loving, sympathetic man or
woman; for, let me ask, have you ever known of any great
personal magnetism in the case of the little, the mean,
the vindictive, the self-centered? Never, I venture
to say, but always in the case of the other.
Why,
there is nothing that can stand before this wonderful
transmuting power of love. So far even as the
enemy is concerned, I may not be to blame if I have an
enemy; but I am to blame if I keep them as such,
especially after I know of this wonderful transmuting
power. Have I then an enemy, I will refuse,
absolutely refuse, to recognize them as such; and instead
of entertaining the thoughts of them that they entertain
of me, instead of sending them like thought forces, I will
send them only thoughts of love, of sympathy, of brotherly
kindness, and magnanimity. But a short time it will
be until they feel these, and are influenced by
them. Then in addition I will watch my opportunity,
and whenever I can, I will even go out of my way to do
them some little kindnesses. Before these forces
they cannot stand, and by and by I shall find that he or
she who today is my bitterest enemy is my warmest friend,
and may be my staunchest supporter. No, the wise man
is he who by that wonderful alchemy of love transmutes the
enemy into the friend--transmutes the bitterest enemy into
the warmest friend and supporter. Certainly this is
what the Master teacher meant when He said: “Love your
enemies, do good to them that hate you and despitefully
use you: thou shalt thereby be heaping coals of fire upon
their heads.” For, thou shalt melt them:
before this force they cannot stand. Thou shalt melt
them, and transmute them into friends.
From
What All the World's A-Seeking, 1896
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The whole
secret of remaining young in spite of years, and even of grey
hairs,
is to cherish enthusiasm in oneself, by poetry, by
contemplation, by charity,-
that is, in fewer words, by the
maintenance of harmony in the soul. When
everything is in
its right place within us, we ourselves are in equilibrium with
the whole work of God. Deep and grave enthusiasm for the
eternal beauty
and the eternal order, reason touched with emotion
and a serene tenderness
of heart-- these surely are the foundations
of wisdom.
Henri
Frederic Amiel
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Letting Go
This is a concept that took me many, many years to understand,
much less put into practice. I grew up thinking that I
needed to control situations to the very end, that I needed to
make sure that results were what I wanted them to be and expected
them to be. Because I saw life in that way, I set
myself up for much unnecessary and unhelpful disappointment, over
and over again. It was rather silly of me, but I didn't know
any better.
Letting go of things is one of the most liberating actions that we
can take in our lives. More importantly, letting go is also
a very effective way of making sure that things turn out the ways
that they're supposed to instead of the ways we want them
to. In another meaning, letting go is liberating because it
allows us to be free from those things that often possess us when
we think that we possess them. In both of these meanings,
the act of letting go allows us to breathe freely, to see life
with new eyes, and to get on with our lives and move on to new
things instead of being tied down to and with the old.
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We
must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph
Campbell
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Much of
letting go is the ability to allow ourselves to stop trying to
control our lives. Yes, we do have decisions to make and
choices to weigh, but once we make them it's important that we let
them play out on their own. I used to think that if I did
that, then things would go terribly wrong and that they would
never turn out the ways that I wanted them to. In some ways,
I was right--things very often didn't turn out the way I expected
them to or wanted them to. That wasn't a bad thing,
though. Even though I didn't realize it at the time, things
were turning out in the ways that were better for me. That
woman with whom I wanted a relationship wasn't as nice a person as
I had thought; that job I wanted would have made me miserable; the
people I wanted to spend time with turned out to be rather toxic.
Nowadays, I know that it's important to try to do what I want, but
not to have too many expectations based on what I want something
to be. I left my last job because I needed to let it go--it
wasn't what I had been led to believe it would be, and though I
loved the kids I worked with, I felt that I was contributing to a
situation that was detrimental to them, not helpful. So I
had to let go of the security of the income and let go of my
relationships with the kids and my colleagues and move on, and the
change has turned out to be extremely positive. Years ago I
would not have been able to see that a change was best--I would
have held on, hoping against hope that things would change there,
even though change really was not in the cards based on the
leadership that was in place.
One of the most important things that I've ever learned to let go
of are my beliefs, especially those to which I've held on for many
years. Such beliefs can be especially limiting and very
inaccurate. Beliefs that we've had since our childhood years
tend to be reflections of the beliefs of our parents and other
adults and authority figures who have had an influence on our
lives. They are not accurate reflections of what we know in
our hearts and spirits to be true, and they keep us from
uncovering our true beliefs simply because we hold on to them
without letting go.
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Let
go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing
you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is
not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing
which keeps you from hope and love?
Leo
Buscaglia
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Another thing
that I've learned to let go of is that which Leo talks about
above: pain from the past in the form of grief, resentment,
anger, pain and the like. When someone else does something
that hurts us, it's very easy to allow ourselves to wallow in the
negative feelings that are caused by that hurt. Sometimes we
spend weeks, months, or even years feeling awful because of
someone else's actions, and we're simply unwilling to let go of
the feelings that we somehow think make us feel
"better," for if I resent something, then I'll show that
person, won't I?
The truth is, though, that these feelings are
self-destructive. They don't destroy anyone else, nor do
they send an important message to anyone else about what
happened--rather, they send a message about what kind of person I
am to hold on to anger and resentment for such a long time.
It's important that we move on with our lives, and if we don't let
go of these feelings, it's pretty much impossible to move
on. After all, I can't move to a new city until I leave the
city I'm in, can I?
Simply put, when I hold on to such feelings, I'm making myself
miserable. When I choose to accept that I'm doing that to
myself, then I can let go of those feelings and make myself feel
much, much better.
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Once
we see that everything is impermanent and ungraspable
and that we create a huge amount of suffering if we are
attached to things staying the same, we realize that
relaxing and letting go is a wiser way to live.
Letting
go does not mean not caring about things. It means
caring about them in a flexible and wise way.
Jack
Kornfield
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Life is not
about control or making things happen in the ways we think they
should happen. In fact, it's rather arrogant for us to be on
this planet that's been here for so long and expect to be able to
control life on it. If we want to see changes, then our task
is to set things in motion, not to micromanage and make them
happen in the ways we think they should. If we have
something that is possessing us, such as alcohol or our television
sets or our cell phones, then it could be time to let it go and
move on with our lives. If we're holding on to resentment
and anger, we're simply raising our own stress levels and blood
pressure, but we're not contributing anything positive to the
situation--and it's time to let it go.
We have to decide if we're going to spend our time fighting life,
or living life. Are we contributing to life, or are we
telling life what we think it should do and be? Are we at
peace when life shows us something we didn't expect, ready to deal
with it on its own terms, or does such a thing knock us for a
loop, making us fearful and upset? Too many of our
disappointments are caused by our own expectations, and until we
can let go of those expectations, we can be sure that we're going
to experience many more stressful, difficult moments in life,
moments that we've caused ourselves.
More
thoughts and ideas on letting go.
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It
can be tempting to blame
others for
our loss of direction. We get lots of information about
life but
little education
in life
from parents, teachers, and
other authority figures who should know better from their experience.
Information is about
facts. Education is about wisdom and the knowledge of how to
love and survive.
Bernie
Siegel
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After a wonderful sojourn in the wilderness, I remember
walking along the streets of a city which had been my home
for awhile. It was 1 p.m. Hundreds of neatly dressed human
beings with pale or painted faces hurried in rather orderly
lines to and from their places of employment. I, in my faded
shirt and well-worn slacks, walked among them. The rubber
soles of my soft canvas shoes moved noiselessly along beside
the clatter of trim, tight shoes with stilt-like heels. In
the poorer section I was tolerated. In the wealthier section
some glances seemed a bit startled and some were disdainful.
On both sides of us as we walked were displayed the things
we can buy if we are willing to stay in the orderly lines
day after day, year after year. Some of the things are more
or less useful, many are utter trash. Some have a claim to
beauty, many are garishly ugly. Thousands of things are
displayed--and yet, my friends, the most valuable are
missing. Freedom is not displayed, nor health, nor
happiness, nor peace of mind. To obtain these things, my
friends, you too may need to escape from the orderly lines
and risk being looked upon disdainfully.
To the world I may seem very poor, walking penniless and
wearing or carrying in my pockets my only material
possessions, but I am really very rich in blessings which no
amount of money could buy--health and happiness and inner
peace.
Peace Pilgrim
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It
is a wholesome and necessary thing
for us to turn again to the
earth and in
contemplation of her beauties to know
the sense of
wonder and humility.
Rachel
Carson
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