When we accept an event, we stop saying, “This shouldn’t have happened” and start asking, “Given that this has happened, what now?”
Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option:
to accept this event with humility;
to treat this person as he should be treated;
to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.54
The greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy
is not imperfection
but the demand for some supposed perfection.
Richard Rohr
A nice poem for the weather we are having these days on this island on the edge of Europe. Insight deepens when we resist the urge to prematurely close meaning, allowing complexity to speak in its own time.
How would it be to allow for knowing
and not knowing: allowing room
for the mystery of creating
to be able to wonder softly
without needing to understand everything
to trust in the process, to trust in love
to trust in the mystery and wonder
of the universe
that beats softly wildly
true, all round about us,
that is hidden in the mists in the clouds and the rain
in the wind blowing and the rain lashing down on your window,
reminding you poetically, prosaically
that this is where you are,
on the island, at the edge,
in a place of finding and refinding,
and remembering to remember
the feel of the mist, wind and rain.
John O’ Donohue
Much of what holds us back is not reality itself, but the stories we tell ourselves about what might go wrong.
Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure.
I have become my own version of an optimist.
If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go through another door – or I’ll make a door.
Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.
Rabindranath Tagore
Courage is not the absence of fear.
It is the presence of clarity.
Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao: Daily Meditations,
Mindfulbalance 