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Today's
Meditation:
It would be interesting if we could find out just how
much of our mental energy is spent on things over which we
have absolutely no power or influence. How much of
our time is spent thinking about--even agonizing
over--things which are completely outside of our sphere of
influence? I see people getting upset about things
that other people do, upset about how their favorite team
did last night, upset about the price of gas, upset about
the fact that so-and-so is divorcing so-and-so, and on and
on and on.
So much of what we think about falls into this
realm--things that we can't do anything about at all.
One of the most important moments of my life came years
ago when a counselor told me: "You spend lots
of time thinking about things that you have no control
over. What would your life be like if you spent all
that mental energy focused on things that you do
have control over?"
It's taken me many years to get half-way decent at it, but
I'm now able to recognize when I'm focused on something
that I can't help, and to switch focus to something that I
can actually help. I can't change the results of
yesterday's elections, but I can make sure that my
students get a lesson that's valuable to them. I
can't change the mistake that I made yesterday, but I can
make amends for it. I can't change today's weather,
but I can dress properly for it and focus on the things
that need to be done today.
I don't believe that Carmel is implying that we shouldn't
think at all about the passing of a loved one--we can't
help that, but we can try to help others work their ways
through it. Some things that we can't help still
deserve our attention, be they times of mourning and
grieving or times of celebration. But for the most
part, in our normal day-to-day lives, we'd spend our time
much more productively thinking about the things that we
can help rather than thinking about the things that we
can't.
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