Monday, March 1, 2010

What If

DHS 110




Saw this interesting quote online:

What if the question is not
why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be,
but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?

Oriah Mountain Dreamer


What if we all changed our perspective and looked at life through the lens of that second question? What if we all set aside even a small portion of every day to investigate that second question, to truly look for the persons we really are?

Einstein once said: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." For the longest time i didn't accept the black and whiteness of that statement — that you had to choose nothing or everything. That never sat well with me. Over time, however, i have come to see that it really is true: either we see no miracles anywhere, or we do see them in some instances. But, once you see them at all, you sooner or later see them in everything.

Life is a miracle. Intelligence is a miracle. (That i have any might be the biggest miracle.) That love, compassion, and empathy exist is an astoundingly great miracle. That we have the ability to investigate who and what we really are is a stupendously great miracle. That those who search with compassion, humor, and dedicated perseverance can actually get a glimpse of that reality is an astoundingly stupendous miracle.

That there are people in this world who, having seen this reality, dedicate their lives to telling the rest of us of the possibility and teaching all who seek them out is the greatest of all astoundingly stupendous miracles.

What if the question you chose to guide your life really was why do we so infrequently want to be the person we really could be?

What if?

T.S. Eliot knew, and answered: "Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." Until you try and see the impossible, until you try to walk through the gateless gate, you'll never, ever, know the limits of your reality.

What if?

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