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Today's
Meditation:
What
kinds of ideals do you follow in your life? Have you
made a conscious decision to follow those ideals through
thick and thin, knowing that they probably won't always
lead you through the easiest of journeys? Have you
even ever sat down to consider your ideals, to ask
yourself truthfully just what you see as very important in
life, knowing that your ideals of yesterday may not be the
same ideals that you hold today?
When
all is said and done, our ideals are the part of ourselves
that define us more than anything else, more than our
words or actions or thoughts. But most of us
couldn't even name five ideals that we hold dear in our
lives, except perhaps in a very broad manner with words
such as "honesty" or "love" or
"commitment." These words, though, mean
different things for different people, and it's important
that we learn-- or define-- what they mean for us rather
than accepting them unthinkingly as generic terms.
As generic terms, quite truthfully, they don't mean much
of anything.
If
we're going to choose ideals that we can follow as guides
to life, then it's important that we know exactly what we
mean by the words we use, and how those words and ideas
can change through the course of our lives. My
ideals of ten years ago definitely are not my ideals of
today, even though I would use many of the same words to
describe them.
What
are your guides in life? If you follow those guides,
to which destination will they lead you? Will you
end up someplace where you truly want to be, or will you
end up in some undefined place that is not completely
comfortable for you? That all depends, of course, on
whether or not you take the time to define the guides you
will use. A mapmaker can cut no corners, and must be
precise all the time. Likewise, we must be precise
when we set out to learn our ideals, though we must keep
in mind that our lives and perspectives change much more
often than a landscape or a system of roads.
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