Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.”

—Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, and Other Aphorisms

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

LiveJournal Haiku!
Your name:	pjthompson
Your haiku:	once when he passed beyond the borders of his lands so that he had been
Username:
Created by Grahame

It's a passing beyond the borders kind of day, trying to decide what I have been day, following a similar weekend. A weekend of reflection and a desire to live my life Mindfully, with Intention.

No, that's not some "leftover hippy sh*t," as an acquaintance of mine might say. It's about a desire to lead a genuine life rather than a purely reactive one. It's about wanting to do the right thing. So I guess, in a sense, it's some "leftover Buddhist sh*t." If I was only Buddhist.

But Mindfulness, now, that's a good concept. To be mindful of everything one does and says, mindful of the consequences, not just of the big things, but of the everyday things: of what I eat, how I move, where I go. Simple, really. But the hardest thing in the world. It's a thing that must start small, sometimes with external things, before it has any prayer of manifesting internally. And it's completely unsustainable. At some point, everyone screws up. At some point, everyone gives in to stress and pressure. But that's kind of the point, too. We acknowledge the screw up, take responsibility. Sometimes we keep screwing up. It is what it is. We acknowledge the stress—because denying it can really mess you up. "Yes, I am stressing," you say to yourself and try to think of small ways you can destress. If you're good to yourself this way, you can be good to others. Escape is not a sin, it's a necessity.

I heard an essay this morning by Norman Corwin in which he said that evil is like a communicable disease. We see it and we think it's all right for us to act out in bad ways, too. It spreads and spreads. But, he said, "Good is as communicable as evil." It is. And that's not just a Pollyanna concept. As Corwin pointed out, you let someone in ahead of you in traffic, they acknowledge with a wave. Most of us feel good about that. Maybe the person on the receiving end will pass on the concept further down the road.

Yeah, I know. Many people laugh at the concept of "paying forward," but cynicism is cheap. Cynicism creates nothing, achieves nothing, empowers no one. All cynicism knows how to do is destroy. I know. I've been cynical. I am trying to reform.

Mindfulness: No, I don't cross the street when the light is red, even if I can get away with it, even if my friends laugh at me. It's a small thing, a goofy thing, but it's my way of saying no to chaos and the spread of bad habits.

Lack of mindfulness: Stealing time from my employer so I can write blog entries.

We all screw up. Acknowledge the screw up, take responsibility for it. Move on.