Your life is not a scoreboard
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain an
A collection of quotes on well-being, suffering, caring, desires, finding Tao, and leisure from four books I’ve read in the last 30 days:
Life is not a scoreboard
Two quotes from Henri Nouwen’s “Out of Solitude”:
“When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments — the results of our actions — to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.”
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
Listen to the episode on Nouwen:
Make time for leisure, without it your soul will suffer
Four quotes from Josef Pieper’s “Leisure: The Basis of Culture”:
“The inmost significance of the exaggerated value which is set upon hard work appears to be this: man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless; he can only enjoy, with a good conscience, what he has acquired with toil and trouble; he refused to have anything as a gift.”
“The “total work” state needs the spiritually impoverished, one-track mind of the functionary; and he, in his turn, is naturally inclined to find complete satisfaction in his service and thereby achieves the illusion of a life fulfilled which he acknowledges and willingly accepts.”
“Leisure, it must be clearly understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude—it is not simply the result of external factors, it is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, a weekend or a vacation. It is, in the first place, an attitude of mind, a condition of the soul, and as such utterly contrary to the ideal of worker in each of every one of the three aspects under which it was analysed: work as an activity, as toil, as a social function.”
“Leisure is a form of silence, of that silence which is the prerequisite of the apprehension of reality: only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear. Silence, as it is used in this context, does not mean “dumbness” or “noiselessness”; it means more nearly that the soul’s power to answer to the reality of the world is left undisturbed.”
Listen to the episode on Pieper:
Find delight in the small moments, today could be your last
Two quotes from King Solomon’s “Ecclesiastes”:
“If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place?”
“For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.”
Listen to the episode on Solomon:
Aim that your desires become effortlessly aligned with the Tao
Four quotes from Confucius’ “The Analects”:
“From fifteen, my heart and mind were set upon learning; from thirty I took my stance; from forty I was no longer doubtful; from fifty I realized the propensities of tian; from sixty my ear was attuned; from seventy I could give my heart and mind free rein without overstepping the boundaries.”
“Exemplary persons have three kinds of conduct that they guard against: when young and vigorous, they guard against licentiousness; in their prime when their vigor is at its height, they guard against conflict; in their old age when their vigor is declining, they guard against acquisitiveness.”
“Exemplary persons make demands on themselves, while petty persons make demands on others.”
“When you meet persons of exceptional character think to stand shoulder to shoulder with them; meeting persons of little character, look inward and examine yourself.”
Listen to the episode on Confucius:
Till next week,
Peace!