“The soul is dyed with the color of its leisure thoughts.” – Dean Inge
We aren’t talking about leisure as in recreation. We are talking about those thoughts that don’t have a specific purpose. They aren’t about getting dinner ready or talking to the boss or planning the wedding or funeral. They are about the thoughts that happen in between. The non-directed thoughts. What are your thoughts at those moments?
Some examples:
When you meander over the arch of your life, do you think about how you have been cheated or unfairly treated? Or do you look at the blessings, the unfairnesses that bent in your favor?
When you realize you have to go to the store at the last minute, do you think about how you have an opportunity to show encouragement or kindness to someone you haven’t even met (a bagger, a person who can’t reach a top shelf) or do you only think about the hassle of it all?
When you are fretting about your future, do you pity yourself and think how helpless you are? Are your thoughts based on fear? Or are they about what new, exciting things that may come to you, EVEN if it includes downsizing, moving, selling, changing, sacrificing. Are you thinking that even what you suffer might be of crucial importance for you?
Now, obviously, none of us spend our thought life thinking only the pollyanna-esque, ‘ain’t life grand even if I live in a dump’ type thoughts, and we shouldn’t. But we should evaluate what part of our thought life we feed and what part we starve. Are we LOOKING at EVERYTHING that happens, are we thinking about the ENTIRETY of it, or mostly the negative.
If you aren’t thinking about all of it, then you are using a limited palette in dying your soul. You are using the mud colors, the dirt colors, the garbage colors, instead of ALL the colors.
Whether your soul is dyed, influenced, infused, tainted, painted or gilded, what you think becomes who you are.
“When a person dies the clutch in their hands only that which they have given away during their lifetime.” Jean Rousseau
This dichotomy is seen in so many areas of life, love, wealth, that is almost seems a universal truth that the opposite of what you expect is going to be true.
I think that is why wisdom that you find among well-known spiritual leaders such as Jesus often seems at first to be in such opposition to common sense.
Turn the other cheek, The meek shall inherit the earth, one must be like a child to enter the kingdom…all these and more speak to the idea that what you would logically think is the way to go is actually the thing that is stopping you from progressing.
“By dint of railing against idiots you run the risk of becoming idiotic yourself.” – Gustave Flaubert
Notice it says ‘runs the risk’. Railing against something doesn’t always make you idiotic, but for it not to, you must keep your cool. Not for every single moment, but for the overall picture.
I remember my unwife use to get perturbed at me for ‘railing’ at times. She would say ‘but what does your anger accomplish?’. I would say in response ‘I am not trying to accomplish anything, I am simply expressing my feelings about something’. But I think she had a valid point in some ways. It is ok to simply express your feelings of anger or frustration at stupidity and idiocy. But it is also good to train yourself to have a larger reason for your expression.
Maybe you plan it, like when your child has continually not obeyed you and you know that it is now time for ‘the fear of god’ to be put into them. So, you let that ‘fear of god’ out. Not in violence and not in mean, hurtful ways. But you express your anger with the knowledge that you have a particular outcome you are hoping for. It is sometimes called ‘righteous indignation’ and it can stop people in their tracks.
The key is to stop and think, evaluate, be willing to think it through with this thought, ‘If I COULD affect something postively with my anger, what would it look like?’
“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” – John Andrew Holmes
As long as you don’t have an attitude while you do it. If you do it to prove how great or noble you are, then your motives are like a bitter addition to a great tasting dish.
I don’t mean you can’t be satisfied and proud of yourself for taking care of others. I mean it is best to think those things after the fact, glow in it a while if you want, then forget it and go be the good person with a guileless heart.
“Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” – Annette Funicello
My wife and I have ‘our’ song and it is ‘Wonderful World’ as sung by Louis Armstrong. I love driving in the car on a puffy cloud day and having that on. It is filled with simple gratitude for love, beauty, friendship and growth.
What day passes where we can not find at least one of those things to admire and cherish? Every day, in other words, has ‘wonderful’ in it, if we are paying attention.
“He Who Accepts Evil Without Protesting Against It Is Really Cooperating With It.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
The easiest thing in the world to do is to sit back and do nothing.
But it really is true that if we want ‘evil’ to diminish we must not just hope it goes away, we must actually speak and act against it. I am not talking just about the big protests or letter writing campaigns you can be part of (I don’t do well in either of those categories either). I am talking about standing up for what is right with the person right in front of you.
The courage to confront someone who cuts someone down because they have a disability, or are of another race or nationality. The willingness to defend someone who isn’t there when they are talked about. The desire to stop innuendo or rumors in their tracks when you hear them. Those are the real day to day work of changing the world to be a better place. That is what defeats evil right where you live.
For those of you who worry about ‘confrontation’ or what my friends will think, then there is no easy way around it. You will likely lose a friend and have a confrontation. But if you practice speaking the truth in love, with a kind heart towards those who said the offensive statement, you can often become closer and more of a friend to the person, not less.
In the end, confrontation or none, you will become a person you and others can be proud of.
One thing I have learned over the years from reading a lot of global and personal histories and biographies and witnessing 50+ years of them myself is that there is ALWAYS a rationalization.
It doesn’t matter how ludicrous the idea might be, how completely untenable or self-destructive, how mean or violent, how opposite of logic or sanity it is, if someone believes it, they will rationalize it. Most all of Germany rationalized Nazism. Mao and Pol Pot rationalized their ‘cultural revolutions’ that killed millions and left their countries destitute. Individuals rationalize addictions and violence and control and gossip and destructive machinations against others. They make the most absurd of conduct make sense in a perverse logic they are depending on.
Always watch out for that in your own life, it is insidious and no one is immune from it unless they have intellectual safe guards against it. What are those safe guards? Solid and proven principles that will keep you safe from outrageous and absurd claims, beliefs and behaviors. What are those principles? There isn’t one set. There are many and it is up to each person to find them for themselves. That is a topic for another blog posting though.
“Two things a person should never be angry at; what he can help, and what he cannot help.” – William A. Ward
I recently made a trip to Tucson to deal with one of my daughters, who had not been in communication for a long time. She was found and her circumstances are pretty trying, just above homeless as a matter of fact. There are some good things that came of the trip, including her getting an initial evaluation and us meeting her friends and her landlord. There is a lot of confidence that she has a number of people helping her. But it isn’t the same as having her in your own town, close by, to give direct help as needed. It isn’t the same as family. But we were only able to do so much. And the result is to be reminded once again of this quote, that anger, while a true emotion and legitimate, is often something that doesn’t lead to much value for the future. It can, but most often it is not, IMHO.
That is all there is to it. You CHOOSE to be thankful. If you aren’t sure whether you are or not, here is a good test. How many times in the past week have you said ‘thank you’ to someone WITH an explanation of exactly what you are thankful for? It isn’t enough to say ‘thank you’. It needs to be followed by ‘because you have been….such a good waitress, or a wonderful wife, or a person who spoke the truth to me, or….you get the idea. TELL the world and the people in it what you are thankful for, and mean it. THAT is the choice you have to make.
