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Today's
Quotation:
Ask
yourself: If I know
something to be true, am I prepared to follow
it, even though it is contrary to what I want or to what I have previously
held to be true? Will I
follow it if it means being laughed at,
if it means personal financial loss, or some kind of hardship?
Eric
Liddell
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Today's
Meditation:
Conviction
tends to be hard to come by. The line between
conviction and stubbornness seems to grow dimmer all the
time as we tend to see standing by one's convictions less as
a sign of strong character and more as a sign of a closed
mind. The trick lies in recognizing what is truly the
truth, and what is something that we believe for now, but
that may change.
For
example, I used to believe that competition is always a very
positive part of our lives, and that teaching kids how to
function in competitive situations was very important for
them. I don't believe that now. I believe that
we overdo competition, and our kids suffer a great deal of
stress and undergo many problems because of our emphasis on
it. I wouldn't have changed my perspective if I hadn't
been open to hearing and accepting the views of others who
disagreed with me, or without having a mind open enough to
recognize that what I was seeing didn't support my beliefs.
On
the other hand, I believe very strongly that children should
be treated with dignity and respect, and I will stand up for
that belief whenever I'm called to, for the rest of my life.
But
that's an easy one--there are few people who would cause me
to stand up for that by presenting an opposing view.
One that wasn't so easy was a few years ago when I
complained to our city government about softball games that
were going on until midnight at a field a couple of hundred
yards from our house. I was seen as a selfish person,
a killjoy, even though my major complaint was that our
school-aged children were being kept awake until after midnight by
cheering crowds when they should have been able to
sleep. (To the city's credit, they did make some
significant changes.)
What
are you willing to stand up for? On the day I die, I
have a feeling that I'll be more concerned about the things
that I stood up for than about the things that didn't
interest me so much. I hope that I'll be able to look
back with satisfaction at having stood up for some important
causes.
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