“Life is made of memorable moments. We must teach ourselves to really live…to love the journey not the destination.” Ann Quindlen
“There is something more-the spirit, or the soul. I think that that quality encourages our courtesy and care and our minds. And mercy and identity.” Maya Angelou
I think there could be endless discussions about fear because it consumes a huge part of our lives. We all fear so many things that they are too numerous to count. We fear our meetings with the relatives. We want the right look, the right words, and to project the right meaning. We worry if our gift is appropriate. We worry about the meaning of the gifts we receive. We fear an others remarks or jokes or slights. We tense at an others body language and question someone’s mood.
Can anyone see a problem here? We are not in the moment. We are obviously not enjoying ourselves. We are almost being selfish in a sense because we are so caught up in the relationship another person has with us that we actually miss the reality around us. To question everyone and everything is a distrust.
Fear is a distrust no matter what the object or person. If we feel and are enjoying the present then there should be no room for doubt. Judgement goes hand in hand with fear. If everyone chose not to judge another then we might possibly live without any dread. If one thinks they are being appraised, anxiety rises to the surface.
Likewise, if we are recklessly evaluating others, then we most likely expect that others are rating us in some way. Getting rid of rankings may get rid of our distress. So what if we look older, plumper, poorer, richer, angrier, incompetent, crazy, lost and a zillion other negative attributes. Reflect for a moment. We feel this because we believe others see us like that or will conduct assessments that we have no control over. If all of us made a pact to stop our judgements of others we could stop fears. That means that as entertaining as gossip is spreading gossip and or listening to gossip would have to stop. It’s detrimental to the person we are talking about and more detrimental to ourselves.
It’s not easy but people might be more relaxed and enjoy those get togetherness more often if they felt no one noticed their extra pounds, extra wrinkles, last year’s clothes, gorgeous jewelry, (yes we criticize those with more money) louder voice due to our frustrations, craziness due to our burdens and tremendous work load, and repetition from our temporary or permanent taxing life of indecision’s.
We could be ourselves at all times. We would not have to act differently with anyone or at anyplace. Maybe some solutions might even be solved. Things would be out in the open and no one would fault us. It is the perfect world of course but if we all attempted a bit more, we would be a tiny bit closer to an awesome new world.
“Action conquers fear.” Pete Zarlenga
“Each of us will one day be judged by our standard of life, not by our standard of living; by our measure of giving, not by our measure of wealth; by our simple goodness, not by our seeming greatness.” William A. Ward
