I heard it said long ago it’s not that the way is narrow, but narrowness is the way. For years I played by my own rules. That worked well for me until it didn’t and my life was consumed with dragging myself out of a ditch.
It’s easy to forget in these days of aloneness there are lots of great lessons out there, available for the taking.
Here are a few:
A man traveled many miles just to test the composure of the Buddha. When he finally met up with the Buddha he commenced harassing him unceasingly, day in and day out. All the while the Buddha remained perfectly at peace. After some time the Buddha turned to the man and asked, “If someone offers you a gift and you decline to accept it, to whom then does it belong?” The man said, “Then it belongs to the person who offered it.” Buddha smiled, “That is correct. So if I decline to accept your abuse, does it not then still belong to you?”
When You’re Feeling Alone
* “Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” — John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
* “The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.” — Mitch Albom
* “Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass.” — D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
* “Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt. In solitude, where we are least alone.”
— Lord Byron
* “No soul can grow to its full stature without spells of solitude.” — Marie Carmichael Stopes
* “There is a solitude of space, A solitude of sea, A solitude of death, but these Society shall be, Compared with that profounder site, That polar privacy, A soul admitted to itself: Finite infinity.” — Emily Dickinson
When You’re Feeling Without Purpose
* “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
* “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King
* “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” — Robert Byrne
* “When you walk in purpose, you collide with destiny.” — Ralph Buchanan
* “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” — Seneca
* “A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” — William G.T. Shedd
* “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” — Victor Frankl
* “When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” — Seneca
* “Learn to seek purpose more than you do pleasure. Pleasure does not change your life, it makes discomfort bearable. Purpose makes discomfort worth it. Don’t let comfort be your first virtue.” — Brianna Wiest
When You’re Consumed With Anger
* “Anger blows out the lamp of the mind.” — Robert G. Ingersoll
* “Spite is never lonely; envy always tags along.” — Mignon McLaughlin
* “I don’t have to attend every argument I’m invited to.” — Author unknown
* “If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape one hundred days of sorrow.” — Chinese proverb
* “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” — Baptist Beacon
* “Temper destroys more homes than termites.” — Arnold H. Glasow
* “Anger and worry are caused by phantoms that we create within ourselves and whose only strength is that with which we endow them.” — Horace Fletcher
* “Before you give someone a piece of your mind, make sure you can get by with what is left.” — Author unknown
* “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.” — Dita Von Teese
* “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” — Buddha
And if all else fails, remember, as Carl Sagan reminds us, we’re all just passengers on a blue dot. Watch on YouTube.
Just a thought…
Pat
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