Tag: Peace

Today is All I Need

If you could relive one day from your past, which day would it be and why?

Why relive a day in the past?

To enjoy the exquisite pleasure again? It wouldn’t be the same.

To correct a stupid mistake? How might that change the present? For better? Or for worse?

So many past experiences, good, bad, and indifferent, have made us what we are today. How would we be changed by reliving one day, especially if we changed something?  Would we be happier? Would we be sadder?

Were the good old days really that good? Were the bad old days really that bad? How might our present knowledge, shaped by our past, affect our experience of that day?

Did a bad experience change us for the better? Or a good experience change us for the worse? What might happen if we changed that experience?

Even if we simply visited the day and watched what happened as an observer, our experience of that day would be different from what it was at the time.

The past made us what we are today, for better or worse. If we changed something, it would affect us in unknown ways. If we left things alone, it would still change us in unknown ways.

Such is the time travel paradox. We can’t relive the past without changing our experience of it, and our memory of it.

No. Today is enough for me.

Embrace Uncertainty

How do you deal with uncertainty?

We cannot plan for everything. Therefore, we have to accept that life is uncertain.

Last week, I had my Thursday planned. On Wednesday night I ran over a triangular piece of brick while turning into my street. I heard the thud of air escaping. 100 yards farther along the street, as I parked outside my house, I could tell I had a flat tyre. It was dark, and late, and I went to bed.

Thursday morning, I could see that my plans for the day would have to be changed as I went to get the irreparable tyre replaced.

Was there any point in making a fuss? No. I had no choice but to spend the morning changing the wheel and waiting at the repair shop while my tyre was replaced. It wasn’t money I’d planned on spending. But what choice did I have?

So my son and I changed our plans and still enjoyed ourselves. Why?

Because we embraced the change; we embraced the uncertainty; and we got on with life. It was a challenge, but it was also an experience. It gave me the opportunity to show my son how to change a wheel, something I haven’t done since I can’t remember when. Now, although he hasn’t done the full job, he knows how the process works. It was a learning experience for my son, and an opportunity for me to practice equanimity.

We learned, and we enjoyed. No panic, no histrionics. Just enjoy end journey, embracing the uncertainty.

Be Yourself

If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?

I would tell myself to be who I am, not what I think others want me to be. Because when you try to be what others want you to be, they’re never satisfied. They won’t like you and you won’t like yourself.

So, cherish the people you’re with, but cherish who you are, too. As long as you’re not harming anyone, just be yourself.

Oh, yes. And stress is very over rated!

You made a difference

If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say?

I would hope that I could look back on my life and say, “You made a difference.”

Many people spend their lives trying to obtain some sort of wealth and so-called success. But what is wealth? What is success?

E told me that her sister, S, was visiting. S, who had no grandchildren, looked around at E’s photos of her grandchildren and said, “I may have money. But your wealth is in these photos.”

Real wealth and real success are in the difference we make in the lives of others.

Quill, ink, and paper

Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?

Okay. I’m not old enough to have used a quill regularly. But there’s something about the idea of slowing down in writing that is missing today.

It’s so easy to fire off e-mails, one after the other, without really thinking about the consequences. In times gone by, if you were angry with someone, you might have to sharpen your quill, dip your ink, and scratch away at the paper before sending your letter to arrive “sometime” in the future. It allowed time to think, “Is this really such an issue?”

There’s also something calming and comforting about the feel of a fountain pen scratching paper fibres as it glides across the page. It’s soothing. And it’s something that’s sadly missing today. Screens with styli come close. But there’s nothing to beat a dip pen, liquid ink, and paper.