He who stands stretching on tiptoe
doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes all the time
cannot maintain the pace.
He who makes a show
dims his own light.
He who defines himself
can’t know who he really is.
He who tries to have power over others
can’t empower himself.
He who clings to his work
will create nothing that endures.
According to followers of the Tao,
“These are unnecessary luggage.”
They do not bring happiness.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 24
We don’t stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw
We often rush through a day – preoccupied with the practical things that need to get done – that we do not have time to celebrate:
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go, to take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward the territories of spirit
Where you will discover more of your hidden life,
And the urgencies that deserve to claim you
May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.
John O Donohue, For the Traveler
Mystery is not much in favor these days. The notion that there are limits to what we can do, what we can know, limits to our dominion, does not sit well with kings and queens of the hill. Humility and reverence, we hear, are the attitudes of cowards. . . . By ‘mystery’ I do not mean simply the blank places on our maps. I mean the divine source — not a void, not a darkness, but an uncapturable fullness. We are sustained by processes and powers that we can neither fathom nor do without. I speak of that ground as holy because it is ultimate, it is what makes us possible, that shapes and upholds everything we see. The stories I am most interested in hearing, reading, and telling, are those that help us imagine our lives in relation to that ground.
Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World
Not a bad attitude to have as we start the day, seeing moments – even difficult ones – as “adventures” .
Wish that your journey be a long one,
full of adventures, full of knowing.
(Vα εύχεσαι να είναι μακρύς ο δρόμος, γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις)
Cavafy’s advice to Odysseus before he set out on his voyage back to Ithaca
Mind always goes ahead or lags behind.
Remain with the moment.
Osho
Mindfulbalance 