Joyce Hifler says: “Too many times we punish ourselves for our yesterdays. We consider a long time what today might have been had we chosen a different route. All the days past are determining for us what today will be as it passes moment by moment” I think about my own life and the choices made. As to how wise my choices were, I made them according to what I felt I understood at the time. We all do. What ever the influences were. We do tend to stack up what will back up what we feel is so. I do wonder what I did not get right but that is spending time on hurts and past angers. I feel sorry for my inaction, and for not understanding. Yet I understood the things the best ways I knew how. I am not sure that I punish myself. If punishing means spending too much time on what I can’t change, then I have. Hifler continues, “Our lives are lived in stages, but it is up to us to make each moment count since it does serve as tomorrow’s foundation. Our pasts may not have been faith and good works, but we wipe out those mistakes the moment we forgive ourselves and others and begin to live in the present.” I do agree with the fact that we build upon the ages and stages of life, that this becomes foundation. I like how Hifler puts her thoughts down. I savor them and wish I could do as well that I can give hope to others. I shall try. I do believe it is up to us to examine our lives and take time to reflect on what we believe as so. Experience teaches us a great deal when we take that time.
Time to reflect on such thoughts as how our parents become very different within our minds when and if we can conclude the wisdom’s they did get right. We they angered or hurt us, we simply were not there yet with our own wisdom’s. What? Wisdom is 20/20? No that is hindsight. How different are these?
I loved it when I came to the point in life, this was when in my mid forties, where I realized how little I knew, how much more there was to know. I concluded that this is how it is supposed to be when in ones mid-forties. I began to look at life differently and I still do! Now I have a great curiosity about how to live more fully. I look for opportunities to go off the beaten path. I think to make the world better we must look for different ways to do things without so many rules, simply do what makes a difference. Imagine being born all knowing? Nope! Imagine being human? Very much so!
What to do about who we are? This is a bigger job than just ourselves but it begins with ourselves. We must learn to listen to one another. We must take the time to really hear. We cannot be an effective whole if we can not understand we are not good communicators because we are not all on the same level of insight or understanding. This is a factor. We assume a great deal about one another and too much of that turns to hate and ignorance. We need people who can help us think in new ways that put everyone’s needs and wants on the table.
It is easier to feel sorrow or compassion empathy or sympathy for your words and actions when you know more about someone. People avoid knowing others. Or they know what they think they know by seeing as they see someone. When you throw up a wall and block everything out because of how you were made to feel. It becomes a barrow tunnel maybe the size of a straw. We are not always taught what to do with our feelings, especially hurt and anger that is turning to frustration and rage at this time! Look what has happened because we have not thought for ourselves. Look what we have accepted as being ok. Look at what we have to change now! It will take time.
The world is full of people who I feel have lost the sense of who they are as well as the sense of what they want, and need. The world is too complex and too hard to sort out, so it seems it is ready to topple over on itself. There are too many rules and to much misuse of them. Too much red tape. Not enough thinking about the results of ones words and actions. How we carry ourselves does matter! How accountable we are matters right along with it! “Neither can we rest on our laurels, for as long as there is life there is work to be done. We do not eat one time and sleep on night and make it last for a lifetime.” Smart lady! Is she not! I love sharing her with you. Her books were the best gifts my grandmother could have ever gave me! Imagine locking onto such words as a teenage with your life ahead of you.
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