Recently in Inspirational Quotes Category
"The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other. We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, "to suffer with."
—Thich Nhat Hanh
I had written a short peice on the value of overcoming in human development. Alas, the computer crashed and my draft was lost and my Muse has left me. So, I am going to include the quotes from two seminal Adlerians that inspired me to write my post just the same. Perhaps my Muse will return at a later time. The quotes are from the Alfred Adler Institute of Northwestern Washington
"It is through the striving to overcome difficulties that the child learns to trust himself, and to fight and solve problems in childhood and during his later life" - Anthony Bruck
People are accustomed to consdering difficulties as something negative, (Alfred) Adler made difficulties something positive, because the desire to overcome the difficulties develops the striving (for significance) in the individual. The individual who had no difficulties willlack the disposition to face and overcome other difficulties" - Anthony Buck (parentheses for clarity)
"A really courageous individual with self-confidence will seek out difficulties because he enjoys overoming them." Anthony Bruck
"If children did not find difficulties, we would have to invent them in order for the child to experience accomplishment and growth, to experience that he is now getting along and can do soemthing. From where should they get this experience? Suddenly they are expected to have it? If you protect the child completely and then send him out inot the school world what can he do?" Lidia Sicher
"Overcoming difficulties leads to courage, self-respect, and knowing yourself"- Sophia de Vires
"A person needs to get a feeling of self before he can give to and cooperate with others. A person gets a feeling of self by making steps to overcome his difficulties"- Sophia de Vires
Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, But do not be disheartened, The source they come from is eternal, growing, Branching out, giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?
The source is within you
And this whole world is springing up from it."
— Jelaluddin Rumi
You carry all the ingredients to turn your life into a nightmare.
Don't mix them!
You have all the genius to build a swing in your backyard for God.
That sounds like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let's start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.
You carry all the ingredients to turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix them!
from The Gift, Poems by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, 1999, Penguin, London
I am at all times the sum of my relationships, and that is what constitutes my identity-
diarmuid o’murchu
"If you want to identify me,ask me not where I live,or what I like to eat,
or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail,ask me
what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live
for."
— Thomas Merton
I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.- Margret Mead
I came across this story in the Parabola newsletter:
Fan Ho, “Approaching Shadow," 1954
I try to set a time each evening to sit quietly for five or ten minutes and try to be aware of this body. I don’t need to do anything except observe what is taking place. I see that I give in to my resistances all too easily. Before I approach my meditation, I can say to my body that, “if you allow me to do this, I will let you surf the internet for an hour as a reward.” This inner bargaining can be extremely useful. And above all else, I try to remember to be kind with myself, especially the parts that remain interested in this effort. There's an old native story that illustrates out human predicament beautifully. It goes like this:
The grandfather looked at his young granddaughter thoughtfully. Something in the beloved child of his child was developing there and so he spoke to her as follows:
“Inside me, there are two wolves and these two wolves fight each other constantly. One of the wolves is aggressive, nervous and filled with a wish to succeed. The other wolf is different. He wishes for more understanding. Both wolves want fulfillment. The first wolf dreams that this could result in more prestige in the eyes of others but the other wolf believes that fulfillment may be found through the path of understanding.”
The grandfather observed that his granddaughter was looking at him anxiously and added “Don’t worry about me alone, for this fight between the two wolves takes place in every one of us existing on this earth. In other people, the first wolf may have a variety of characteristics but the second wolf is, more or less, the same in everyone.”
The granddaughter looked thoughtful and was silent for some time and then she said, “Grandfather, which wolf will win the fight in you?” “Well” said her grandfather, “It depends which one I feed.”
After reading the morning paper and exercising to the "news" on cable tv I was feeling quite discouraged. Serendipity then smiled on me and I found a quote that was encouraging:
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars- Oscar Wilde
The "news" makes it seem that there is no star light out there. Nothing to strive for except what we can see at the tip of our noses. However, it might be that a glance at the vastness of the universe can humble us and encourage us to see ourselves as part of a larger drama and get busy creating a community worthy of that vastness.
