Category: Make the most of life

Life satisfaction

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:London, a packed train leaves King's Cross St. Pancras - geograph.org.uk - 1500449.jpg

We have enormous expectations that our careers will provide satisfaction in our life, and however well or unwell our jobs work for us, in the second half of life we often find ourselves working for them, with decreasing satisfaction even as we accomplish our goals, collect our paychecks…If the soul could be bought so easily, then our culture would easily work. Only the unconscious think it does. Look around you. Look within you.  Be honest. How well does material affluence work? And what is the price?

James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life.

photo of London underground train by Chris Downer

True to oneself

Karl Duffy7 Comments

File:Buttons (504354910).jpg

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular

but because it never forgot what it could do

Naomi Shihab Nye, Famous

photo tony hisgett

Choice

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Hommikune udu Kakerdaja rabas.jpg

Find a place where you can feel completely at ease

and say to yourself,

Only I can destroy my peace,

and I choose not to do so

Allan Lokos, Pocket Peace

photo abrget47j

Stop, look, go

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Apple orchard.jpg

It helps me to review my practice of gratefulness by applying … the rule I learned as a boy for crossing an intersection: “Stop, look, go.” Before going to bed, I glance back over the day and ask myself: Did I stop and allow myself to be surprised? Or did I trudge on in a daze? Was I too busy to wake up to surprise? And once I stopped, did I look for the opportunity of that moment? Or did I allow the circumstances to distract me from the gift within the gift? (This tends to happen when the gift’s wrappings are not attractive.) And finally, was I alert enough to go after it, to avail myself fully of the opportunity offered to me?

My simple recipe for a joyful day is this: Stop and wake up; look and be aware of what you see; then go on with all the alertness you can muster for the opportunity the moment offers. Looking back in the evening, on a day on which I made these three steps over and over, is like looking at an apple orchard heavy with fruit.

David Steindl-Rast, Awake, Aware and Alert

Perspective

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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“Is my life meaningful?” When I ask the question this way the perspective is very different. Now my happiness will no longer depend upon my never getting sick, or upon my not getting lonely, or upon my never being misunderstood, or upon my never making wrong choices, or on somehow being exempt from death’s shadow. Life can be frustrating and still be very meaningful. We can be lonely, sick, sorrowful about wrong choices, over-worked and unappreciated, staring old age and death in the face and still experience deep meaning. Happiness will be a by-product of that.

Are my symbols working?  Does my life have a meaning?

The question about happiness comes after that question.

Ron Rolheiser, Happiness and Meaning

Working with today

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:The walking in the rain.JPG

Accept – then act.

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.

Always work with it, not against it

Eckhart Tolle

photo pygarcia