Category: Make the most of life

The Choices we make

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We like to think that we have a substantial core to ourselves, some type of identity which lasts. However, it is proabably better to see ourselves as continually defining ourselves, each day and each week, by the choices which we make. And as I said in a post yesterday, even a week can open up a completely different reality, in a world which changes like our one does.

Each day we are faced with a multitude of choices. And as St Thomas Aquinas reminded us, every choice is a renunciation. In fact it’s a thousand renunciations. Simply put: If you choose to take one path, you give up on another path, if you choose to spend your time and energies in one direction, you can’t spend them somewhere else. We can’t have it all. Each choice serves to eliminate some possibilities. Thus, in a real sense, we become the being we are, by choosing certain directions, and communicating that choice to others. Often the choice made by us or by others allows a path to open which otherwise would not have been possible. Life is indeed rare and unique, and not a rehearsal, but lived moment by moment, this breath arises and passes away, this chance comes and goes away.

Kindness

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness” – Seneca

It is easy to be kind when the recipient is someone we like.

But to be kind when someone is difficult or has hurt us takes a lot of strength and compassion.

On not being afraid

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.

Anthony Robbins

On getting older

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

A lovely poem on getting older:

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it moving
Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.

And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices tying
His father’s tie there in secret

And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something

That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.

Donald Justice Men at Forty

At times it is necessary to let go of the past as one moves on in life. Doing so, the ground may not feel so solid; it moves, as the poet says, “like the deck of a ship”. However, that movement is gentle, partly because of the wisdom, experience and skills built up over the years. There is something beautiful about the use of the word “softly” at the end of the second line. Moving on can be done with full acceptance, with a face turned toward future adventures, with an understanding of the passing of time.

Transformation

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Monday was the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. It is a very famous example of change: blinding flash of light, depicted as knocking him from his horse, in a solitary, blind state until meeting with a wise man takes the “scales from his eyes”. It is presented as very dramatic, almost instantaneous. And in some ways that is what we all seek – some event or encounter which will provide us with instant relief and comfort or the skills we feel we lack to make sense and success of our lives. It is as if we believe there is a secret chord out there somewhere that will be the missing part, and will complete the symphony which is our lives.

However, such a dramatic change is not the norm and was not even true for Saint Paul. We are told that he went out into the desert after this event to reflect and enter inside himself. Some writers say that there was a ten year gap between this event and his first activity. For him, and for us, change is a slow, gradual, patient process.

This evening, a new MBSR Course begins as we set out together on this slow process of change. Everyone comes with different expectations, from different places in their lives. It is true that sometimes a dramatic change or event in our lives can bring us to a Course like this, but it can also be a gradual growing awareness of the need for change or support. However we got here, we learn very quickly that we can begin afresh every day, every moment, because each moment, for the participants and for me, is a new moment, the only moment we have to live. This Course is a chance to turn towards what is deepest and best inside us, an opportunity to practice paying attention. Gradual paying attention, moment by moment, changes how we see life. In that sense it is a real conversion.

Destiny

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

When you are compassionate with yourself,
you trust in your soul,
which you let guide your life.

Your soul knows the geography of your destiny
better than you do.

John O’Donoghue