The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’
“The loveliest things in life are but shadows, and they come and go, and change and fade away…” – Charles Dickens
2017.11.30 On Risk-Taking
“I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.” – Jeanette Winterson
When faced with a big decision, I often feel a little paralyzed. The peacekeeper between my reason and my passion paces full force back and forth in my mind, trying to find a way out of the mess.
I long for clarity. I crave a clear path. I desire security.
But I know there is none.
The future is and will be uncertain. I can not control the outcome. All I know is that I have the strength to endure, great love to give, and the longing to live a loud, exuberant life.
To change careers. To move across country. To love again.
These things change lives, and I must open myself to them if I am going to change mine.
Closing Circles – Paulo Coelho
“One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.
You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.
But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.
Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.
Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.
Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.
Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”
Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.
Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.
This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.
Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
Always Ill, Never Dies
So many of us daily subject ourselves to numerous emotional, physical, and mental toxins: A job we feel secure in but provides us no challenge, a relationship we’ve cultivated over years that no longer provides sustenance in return, a substance used recreationally that we’ve allowed ourselves to become dependent upon. We avoid physical activity because we are lazy, we eat junk because it is convenient, we watch tv because we don’t want to think. We find new and creative ways to distract ourselves and ignore our true needs.
Even when we can see and feel the harm being done, we continue to indulge ourselves in these things that make our souls sick. Why?
For many, it is hopeless human optimism mixed with fear of change and laziness that keeps one firmly in place.
First, often, the things making us sick do not start at out as toxins. In fact, they may have been critical to our journeys of self. But just as a child outgrows his clothes, we too often outgrow parts of our life (or they outgrow us). This is completely natural. It is only when we insist upon keeping those clothes that we find ourselves increasingly uncomfortable–optimistic we could squeeze another year or two out of them when in fact all we are doing is suffocating ourselves. We keep thinking it can’t be ‘that, bad.
Second, these things that make our souls sick are usually deeply embedded in our conditioned understanding of how life should be–and present for a long time. We’ve grown dependent, reliant, afraid. We fear attempting to change developed patterns and lifestyles because there is no certainty in what comes next. We hate uncertainty.
And finally, its easier to not. It is easier to ignore than to confront, excuse than address, sleep than to wake. We seek out the path of least resistance.
And by ignoring these things that make us sick, we are bombarded with their symptoms: emotional distress or numbness, depression, anxiety, unease. We complain, we seek out temporary escape, we make excuses. But the longer we indulge in these poisons, the hard it is to break free. We become addicted to our chosen illness, for it is all we know.
It doesn’t help either that, in trying to change, we often face the potential for great hurt–either ourselves or others in our lives. At some point, all illnesses can advance far enough to affect those around us. They join us in our sickness, find themselves sick too. If not for our sake, for theirs, we must face and break free from the things that make our soul sick.
Daily Reminder
Line 5 from Hex 16 of the I-Ching, when paired in change, can be interpreted as “Always Ill, But Never Dies”. I read this and am reminded today to examine where in my life am I allowing poison to seep in? What in my life have I outgrown?
Do not be afraid to let go the things you’ve outgrown. Yes, there may be fear and pain, but in passing through that fear and accepting the pain that comes with growth, we free ourselves to pursue our fuller potential.
Onwards!
“We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better.” – C. Joybell
And likely that thing you are holding onto isn’t actually all that good for you.