˚ gently empowered
Posted on 10/09/2009. Last edited on 26/11/2015.
Accidental Note posted this on a thread:
When you come FROM ‘happiness’, you do certain things because you ARE happy — as opposed to the old paradigm in which you did things that you hoped would MAKE you happy. When you come FROM ‘wisdom’, you do certain things because you ARE wise, not because you are trying to get to wisdom. When you come FROM ‘love’, you do certain things because you ARE love, not because you want to have love. Everything changes; everything turns around, when you come FROM ‘being’, rather that seeking to ‘be’… Here is the divine dichotomy. The way to get there’ is to ‘be there’. Just BE where you choose to GET! There’s nothing you have to do. You want to be happy? Be happy. You want to be wise? Be wise. You want to be love? Be love.
~ Neale Donald Walsch
˚ gently empowered
Posted on 10/09/2009.
Lee had posted this once:
Dogen Zenji Quote:
“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
˚ gently empowered
Posted on 25/01/2010.
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr.
Thank you for sharing that wonderful quote, it is so true. You don’t really find happiness by seeking it, it comes to you from being and doing something that resonates with you on a personal level. It’s why people who are doing work they find meaningful are happy. There are many people in this world who make a lot of money, but are miserable because their work has no meaning for them. (There are also a lot of people in this world who DON“T make a lot of money and are miserable for the exact same reason!)
This idea is important to me. The foundation for success in life comes from self-confidence, and self-confidence comes from knowing your values. If you know your values your feet are on solid ground – from there, the sky is the limit. Maybe meaning for you or me doesn’t come from fame or fortune, maybe meaning for you comes from being a great parent, or a great teacher, or nurse, or writer, or whatever – the thing is to figure out what is important to you and move forward from there.
East bound and down, loaded up and truckin’
a’we gonna do what they say can’t be done
(I’ve still got a ways to go, but I’m glad to have bmindful and my bmindful friends to help me get there.)
———————————-
Believe it or not, I used to know this soliloquy by heart. I wasn’t required to learn it for any reason, I just memorized it. It took a good deal of time, and doing it gave me a great deal of appreciation for Shakespearean actors. I’ve had the privilege of seeing a few plays by the RSC, and let me tell you, it is truly something. Since this thread is titled “To Be (or Not to Be)” it seems only fitting that I post this. It really is quite powerful. Just so you’ll know, a bare bodkin means a knife or dagger and fardels are burdens.
Oh, and by the by, the answer to the question is “To BE”!
Act 3 Scene 1: To Be, Or Not To Be (Spoken by Hamlet)
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
I thought of something else I wanted to mention.
Knowing what you value can be helpful if you are in a job you hate. You can change your attitude toward tasks you don’t like by changing your paradigm. You can tie tasks to your values if you know what I mean. It may not be a nostrum for everything, but it can be a handy little tool for your toolkit. Why not make the best of it while your finding your perfect job?
(Trust me, I need to pay more attention to my own advice!!! I’m no sage master by stretch of the word! I can’t even snatch the pebble from my own hand yet! KEYWORD: “YET”)
This is true for all of life’s areas of Activity:(Marriage/Family, Career/Professional, Social/Political, Religious/Spiritual). We can figure out our values in all these areas. We are on more solid ground and more balanced when we know what we value in all of these areas.
Here is a personal values exercise I just found.
˚ gently empowered
Posted on 26/01/2010.
In response to themadcookieman’s post:
I totally agree with the changing your paradigm-mode. I do it with affirmations regularly and it works!
˚ gently empowered
Posted on 11/05/2010.
The true spiritual path is not so much about changing the kind of works that we do, as it is about realizing the need to change for whom it is that we do them.
Guy Finley
