“…we’re all one phone call from our knees…” – Mat Kearney
In the next hour, your life could change completely. Someone you love could die, there could be a terrorist attack in your city, you could lose a limb in an accident…your world could literally change forever…We really are all one phone call from our knees…be grateful for what you have here and now because nothing in this life is certain…
“We have to grow, we have to move forward, to learn and evolve, add to our dictionary of life” – Janet Leigh
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress” – Frederick Douglass
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another” – Anatole France
Hmmmm. So, I am currently feeling reflective and wondering about progress, personal development and the future. As I’m sure you’ve thought before, this is a very broad and deep topic. The process of growth is seen everywhere: In nature, in children and even in our own lives. When we learn from something and change for the positive, this is growth. While it may sound unthreatening and harmless, I think true growth can be very painful, especially when it concerns the inner-life. Those set of ideas, beliefs, feelings, traditions and thoughts that we consider ‘normal’ often become (or have always been) a hindrance to growth and progress and must therefore be discarded in favour of new ideas and beliefs, more appropriate traditions, and better thoughts, feelings and ideas. This is often very difficult and painful. To realise that something which, up until now, you have considered to be part of who you are needs to be given up is quite shocking. I think it can be likened to losing a good friend. You have memories together, you have ‘history’. In a sense you see yourself as part of that old system, or more accurately you see that old system as being part of who you are (although I suppose these could be one and the same thing). And yet if we are to progress, these realisations must happen many times and in many different ways throughout our lives. A healthy sense of depression will ensue as we mourn for the loss of part of ourselves, but ultimately this is for the good. The comfort we derive from the familiar must give way to the necessity for growth.
Where do we get the strength to deal with these difficulties? To take that first step and assess our situation objectively (searching for the truth irrespective of what it may be) takes tremendous courage and inner strength – where does this come from? I’m not sure. Is it from our personality? Up-bringing? God? Or more realistically a combination of these three.
The above has assumed that we are willing to deal with problems when they arise. This is (unfortunately) not the only option. One could ignore them and hope that they go away ‘da Nile is not just a river in Egypt’. So many people choose this second option of ignoring their problems. They will make up stories, take drugs, get drunk, get in a relationship, all in an effort to avoid dealing with their problems or even more ridiculously in the hope that this will solve their problems. This leaves broken people who propagate broken children and ultimately a screwed-up society of ill-disciplined individuals who cannot grow.
I think two of the most comforting things about being a Christian are: Firstly, that God has told us so much about ourselves, His plan, and how the two interact in the Bible. Secondly, that the true source of determination, ability, motivation, self-control etc is external to ourselves – the Holy Spirit. True and sustained growth is not possible without the Holy Spirit who is that part of the Godhead that is here on earth dwelling with us, helping us, counselling us, leading us and growing us.
In sum, growth is fundamental. We cannot grow without giving up unhelpful parts of ourselves. This is painful and only possible with the help of the Holy Spirit. Just a thought… 🙂
Posted in Christian, Intense, Psychology, Quotes
“Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.” – JM Keynes
“The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods.”
“The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems – the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behaviour and religion.”
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back… Sooner or later, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”
-John Maynard Keynes
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see” – John Burrough
Posted in Quotes
The caption that goes with this picture is “You will be remembered by what you leave behind”
I have just watched a documentary on the history of nuclear weapons (Imax – Trinity and Beyond – the Atomic Bomb Documentary) and feel bewildered. Every now and then in history there is a watershed moment where something happens or someone discovers something that changes the course of history (from what I’m not sure). It can be for good (penicillin or the Internet) or for bad (the atomic bomb or biological weapons). Perhaps these history-changing discoveries occur randomly and cannot be predicted, but one thing seems to be certain, they seem to be happening more frequently. I suppose this makes sense considering that the growth rate of change is cumulative in the sense that change creates more change, and more technology gives rise to even more advanced technology (a broad application of Moore’s Law to change). This is quite scary. I don’t think that most of us realise the degree of change and discovery that is happening all around us. What new medical breakthrough is being discovered in labs around the world? What new threats are being developed as we go about our everyday lives?
What will be the next discovery that revolutionises warfare? First it was the automation of weaponry and guns, then the nuclear weapon, then biological weapons…then what? This is quite a sobering thought.
What will our generation leave behind to be remembered by?
Posted in Intense
“Now Faith, in the sense in which I am using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods” – C.S. Lewis
The Birth of Jesus Christ
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”…Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”…But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
-Matthew1-3 (excerpts from ESV)
Posted in Christian
“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering” – Carl Jung
Posted in Psychology, Quotes
‘Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems’
“Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of confronting and solving human problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, ‘Those things that hurt, instruct’. It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welocme the pain of problems.
Most of us are not so wise. Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid problems. We procrastinate, hoping they will go away. We ignore them, forget them, pretend they do not exist. We even take drugs to assist us in ignoring them, so that by deadening ourselves to the pain we can forget the problems that cause the pain. We attempt to skirt around problems rather than meet them head on. We attempt to get out of them rather than suffer through them.
This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness.”
-The Road Less Travelled (M. Scott Peck, Page 4+5)
Posted in Intense, Psychology, Quotes, Wisdom
C.S. Lewis on the commercialization of Christmas:
“It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them the money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.”
-‘What Christmas means to me’ (1957)
“To recast the Cartesian proposition “I think therefore I am” ubuntu would phrase it “I am human because I belong”. Put another way “a person is a person through other people”. No one comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think or walk or speak or behave unless we learned it from our fellow human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. The solitary, isolated human being is a contradiction in terms” – Desmond Tutu
The above is the end of Eliot’s poem describing the Three Wise Men when they gave up their previous world view and accepted the truth that is Christ.
“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently” – Agnes de Mille
Everyday, each and every one of us makes decisions. Some are good, some are bad, but all are decisions that were made. We choose to do good or to do bad. We choose to live for the benefit of others, or to live for the benefit of ourselves. Ultimately, there comes a time of realisation where the possessor of the will decides to exercise his will irrevocably in one direction or another. Perhaps for some weak and ineffectual people, this moment never dawns and they continue to live a life of bland ambiguity, not truly knowing their left hand from their right.
“Could’st thou in vision see
Thyself the man God meant
Thou never more could’st be
The man thou art, content”
-Anon
I want to live a purpose-filled life.
I want to be a man of God
I want to constantly improve myself
The big decisions in life are not made in the limelight. They aren’t made in the presence of the powerful or the company of the influential. They are made sitting on your bed, looking at your hands and asking yourself the tough questions in life. What will I do? What will I be? What will I believe? What will I leave behind? Who am I?
Often I don’t know what to do. I’m not always sure how to describe it but it usually just comes as a sense over me where I say “I don’t know what to do”. Sometimes I’m not sure what I should feel, if indeed I should feel anything. Sometimes I don’t know if I should care, or if I should care, why I don’t care. It feels like an in between place between having purpose and drive and being completely apathetic. Usually I just sleep it off and it goes away but I think I will think about it now and see what comes of it. It feels like opening a door which leads into a dimly-lit room which has a musty, unused smell. With a beige haze I look around and can’t see anything clearly. I feel awkward and paranoid as I tilt my head upwards, looking forward. Truly, I don’t know what to do…
