Today's
Meditation:
This
is one of the most common thoughts that we find in the
quotations books and websites. How much do we hurt
ourselves by worrying about how things are going to turn
out, by thinking that the worst is going to come to pass
even though there's no real indication that this is even a
remote possibility.
Our
minds like to worry. Our minds like to keep us
thinking in negative terms, for then our egos, which like
to be "in charge," have full power over us,
keeping us focused on our need to try to control
situations in order to avoid disaster. The problem
is that we really don't have control over most situations,
so our attempts to avoid these "evils that never
happen" are really just exercises in futility.
But what happens is that since these things don't come to
pass, we convince ourselves that we successfully avoided
them rather than seeing things as they are--our greatest
fears wouldn't have come to pass anyway. But now
that we're convinced that we avoided them, the next time a
worry comes around we act the same way.
How
much time have you spent worrying about something that
never happened? And the important question:
how might you have spent all that time doing something
much more productive than worrying? What might you
have given to life--your life and the lives of others--if
you hadn't been focused on worrying about something that
wasn't even going to happen?
Trust
life. Trust God, whatever you conceive God to
be. We are not here to suffer and to be
miserable--we're here to thrive and to love. Worry
is a force that keeps us focused on the negative
possibilities, rather than on the beautiful realities of
the present moment.
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