“Never give up, no matter what is going on…no matter what is happening, no matter what is going on around you, never give up.” Dalai Lama. Well, we are three months into a new year. Had any disappointments, regrets or even failures yet? Made any mistakes yet? If your answer was no to any of these I would have to wonder whether you have ever left your house this year or you are unwilling to admit wrong actions? OR, you have modified your definition of the previous items and put them all in the same box called – I tried, or I did my best or I’m not finished yet or it ain’t over till it’s over or something else. I have written many articles on this topic and do a three hour session on failure & quitting. In the end, in every life action you have three simple options – keep going, quit or go into some emotional state like denial, blame or resistance. But when all is said and done I’m not implying you should stick with anything; career, job, relationship, plan, goal etc. forever if it isn’t working. Yes, letting go and starting over in a new direction is sometimes the best or the only option but what I am asking is – if you let go and start over was it because you couldn’t handle the uncertainty, frustrations and disappointments or because it was just time to move on?
“Fear is the absence of faith.” Paul Tillich. There are only two basic emotions – fear and love. All other emotions are subsets or degrees of these. Regardless of whether it’s jealousy, blame or regret or joy, inner peace and contentment you have a choice as to which of these two emotions will tend to have control either directly or indirectly over your present, your future and your interpretation and or memories of your past. All fear is grounded in a fight, flight, or freeze but love has over 100 words that in some way define or contribute to the response of love. I’m not referring here to the concept of being in romantic love as this is an entirely different subject. In order to interpret this quote we also need to grasp the idea of faith. To me it’s just believing in something you can’t prove or there is no general accepted evidence of or for. So, why does he feel fear is present when faith is lacking? Faith is one of the subset words that relates to love so what I believe he is saying is that love and fear can’t exist at the same time in any situation. You need to choose which one will dominate your thoughts, feelings, emotions or actions but you can’t exhibit the responses of both at the same time.
“Nothing is worth more than this day.” Johann W. Goethe. I’ll keep this short. You are reading this – so you got another day. Well, over 8000 people in the US – that’s the current average daily death rate not including Covid – for people who didn’t get today. So, let me ask you how will you spend this day, this special day, that you got? With gratitude, joy, appreciation, kindness, giving and compassion or any number of negative emotions – this list is far too long to mention and plus it’s hard for me to stay focused or even write about negative stuff in detail. Love today, whatever it brings you. Cherish life. Have some fun. Make someone laugh.