Читать книгу Living Long, Living Passionately - Karen Casey - Страница 22

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

—Abraham Lincoln

Actively, yet quietly, developing a peaceful perspective is the key, the one and only key I've discovered, to calm the running tapes in our mind, tapes that accelerate the chaos we feel within. Seeking to shift one's perspective away from the all too common turmoil, turmoil that generally isn't any concern of ours anyway, is a beginning. A beginning for a far more peaceful life, day by day, hour by hour.

Perhaps it seems that I am obsessively focused on living the peaceful life. Certainly many of these essays have peace and its attainment as the core message. No doubt there are other states of mind nearly as valuable as being at peace. However, I have yet to meet a mature man or woman who hasn't longed for greater spells of peace.

I think we are lucky, very lucky indeed, to be in charge of our state of mind, a state of mind that sees roses rather than thorns. Blaming someone else for our anger or hopelessness, or crediting them with our happiness or good fortune, means that our lives unfold entirely at the whim of someone else. I know I don't want to have my present or my future in someone else's control ever again. I lived that way quite willingly, yet at the time unknowingly, the first four decades of my life. That kind of life no longer calls to me, thank God. I'm not sure it ever really called, but once I surrendered my power to others, which was second nature to me, I was trapped nonetheless. And I crawled into that trap while still a child. For years I was trapped. Letting others have the responsibility for my actions, opinions, and feelings took me off the hook. Yet, because I turned my life, my emotions and actions, over to the “care” of others, I lived constantly on the edge of fear, never knowing where their choice or behavior would take me next. And I didn't know how to change my predicament.

But something did finally change. I still don't know what triggered it, but I did finally have a shift in perception. I finally saw what I was allowing to happen. Did this come about because I simply got tired of others' choices? Perhaps, but not necessarily. What I do know for certain now, and it's all I know for sure, is that I want to be in charge of my life from now on, which means stepping up to the plate and inviting God to help me select every action I take or opinion I favor. It may seem awfully late in the game to be making this choice now, but I adhere to the premise that it's never too late to start living a better life. And one of the keys to that better life is reclaiming a peaceful perspective. We were all born with one. And too often we bartered it away, decision by decision, when in the company of a stronger person. Let's stand tall and take charge. Peace begins with each one of us. If not now, when?

To be more peaceful, I plan to . . .

To spread peace wherever I go, I promise to . . .

To bring benefit to the world around me, I will . . .