Today's
Quotation:
There is no true and constant gentleness without
humility;
while we are so
fond of ourselves, we are easily offended
with others.
Let us be persuaded that nothing is due to us,
and then nothing will disturb us.
Let us often think of our own
infirmities, and we shall become indulgent
towards those of others.
Francois Fenelon
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Today's
Meditation:
I
don't think that Francois is telling us here to judge
ourselves harshly and to be down on ourselves all the
time. Rather, he sees the importance of perspective in
our relations with other people. So much of our own
discontent is due to our feelings that other people have
hurt us or let us down, and very often the hurt or letdown
is only in our minds, in our own view of what has happened.
Other
people will disappoint us, and they will let us down.
And no matter how hard we try not to do so, we will let
others down. We will disappoint those people we love,
and those people with whom we work. It's called being
human, and if we judge others harshly when they falter or
commit some egregious error, then we're not allowing them to
be truly human, are we?
If I'm humble-- if I allow humility to be a trait that I
value and foster in my life-- then I'm not going to be so
quick to judge others. I'm going to recognize that the
faults I see in others are often the faults I find in
myself, so I can treat others with more equanimity, dignity,
and respect.
It's
taken me a lot of effort to get to a point at which I'm able
to stay non-judgmental when others do things that I'm not
too thrilled with, and I'm still not all that good at
it. But I find that life is much, much easier for me,
much more enjoyable, when I'm not focusing on the ways that
others have offended me. I've found out that most of
the things that I've taken personally haven't even been
meant personally, and I've wasted a lot of time and effort
feeling bad about things that shouldn't have affected me at
all.
I
serve myself much better by being like the duck whose
feathers cause water to roll right off its back. I
don't want to get drenched in resentment or anger; I much
prefer life when I'm keeping in mind that since I make many
mistakes myself, I should do my best not to let the mistakes
that other people make bring me down.
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