"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it but all that had gone before." Jacob Riis
"Life is made of memorable moments. We must teach ourselves to really live... to love the journey not the destination." Ann Quindlen
I think there could be and maybe should be many posts about fear because it consumes a huge part of our lives. We all fear so many things that they are too numerous to count.
Let's talk today about fear of our meetings with the relatives. We want the right look, the right words, and to project the right meaning. We worry if our gift is appropriate. We worry about the meaning of the gifts we receive. We fear an other's remarks or jokes or slights. We tense at an other's body language and question an other's mood.
Can anyone see a problem here? We are not in the moment. We are obviously not enjoying ourselves. We are almost being selfish in a sense because we are so caught up in the relationship another person has with us that we actually miss the reality around us. To question everyone and everything is a distrust. Fear is a distrust no matter what the object or person. If we feel and are enjoying the present then there should be no room for fear. Judgement goes hand in hand with fear. If everyone chose not to judge another then we might possibly live without our fears. If one thinks they are being judged, fear rises to the surface.
Likewise, if we are judgemental, then we most likely expect that others are rating us in some way. Getting rid of judgements may get rid of our fears. So what if we look older, plumper, poorer, richer, angrier, incompetent, crazy, lost and a zillion other negative attributes. Reflect for a moment.
We feel this because we believe others see us like that or will tag us with judgements that we have no control over. If all of us made a pact to stop our judgements of others we could stop fears. That means that those of us who like to spread gossip and listen to gossip would have to stop and let it go. It's detrimental to the person we are talking about and more detrimental to ourselves.
It's not easy but people might be more relaxed and enjoy those get togetherness more often if they felt no one noticed their extra pounds, extra wrinkles, last year's clothes, gorgeous jewelry, (yes we criticize those with more money) louder voice due to our frustrations, craziness due to our burdens and tremendous work load, and repetition from our temporary or permanent taxing life of indecision's. We could be ourselves at all times. We would not have to act differently with anyone or at anyplace. maybe some solutions might even come through for us or by us for another because things would be out in the open and no one would fault us. It is the perfect world of course but if we all attempted a tiny bit, we would be a tiny bit closer to an awesome new world.
"Action conquers fear." Pete Zarlenga
"Each of us will one day be judged by our standard of life, not by our standard of living; by our measure of giving, not by our measure of wealth; by our simple goodness, not by our seeming greatness." William A. Ward
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