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Today's
Meditation:
I think there should be a little more to this quotation; I
believe that the point Thaddeus is trying to make is that
if we want our worlds and our lives to improve, nothing
has to change but the way we look at them. And boy,
can that be true. A shift in perspective, even a minor,
subtle one, can help us to see that even in the midst of
strife or crisis, the world is what it is, and the way we
look at it determines how we feel about it.
Emerson once wrote about what would happen if we were to
pack our bags and move to Venice in order to improve our
lives-- our surroundings would change, but we'd soon
discover that we brought along the same old person.
We may live in a place we'd dreamed of, but we'd still see
life and its situations in the same ways. Our
surroundings may provide us with a momentary lift or
shift, but the bottom line always is that the way we see
our selves and our lives is the most important determiner
of how we live those lives.
Instead of judging ourselves, we can accept ourselves.
Perhaps we still want to change some things, but we are
who we are at the moment, aren't we? Instead of
wishing the world were different, we can look for the
hidden diamonds and treasures in life as it is-- and
they're often not even hidden, just invisible to us
because we don't bother to try to see them. Instead
of dwelling on something negative that has happened to us,
we can count our blessings and be truly grateful for them.
If there ever is to be any sort of change in our lives or
the ways we live them, that change must come in our own
worldview and self-view. If we want to see
improvements in our lives, the first step always is to see
the beauty and the gifts in the world we live in, and
truly appreciate them. It's only when we improve the
way we see the world that our world will start to improve
around us.
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