On Enemies and Mistakes...

Making Mistakes

The German philosopher F. Nietzsche once said that it is no use living arguing about everything; it is part of human nature to make a mistake now and again.

Yet we all know people who absolutely insist that they are right even down to the smallest details. We ourselves are often included in this category: we don’t allow ourselves to make mistakes.

All that we achieve with such an attitude is the fear of moving forward – because certain steps call for new decisions whose results are unknown to us.

The fear of making a mistake is the door that locks us up in the castle of mediocrity: if we manage to overcome this fear, we are taking an important step towards our freedom.

Love Your Enemy. But Never Forget...

The warriors of light always keep their hearts clean of feelings of hatred. When they go to fight, they always remember the words: 'Love your enemies'. But they know that the act of forgiving foes does not force them to accept everything.
Warriors cannot lower their heads – otherwise they lose sight of the horizon of their dreams. The warrior understands that the adversaries are there to test our persistence, our ability to make decisions. Adversaries are a blessing – because they force the warriors of light to fight for their dreams.

Love your enemy. But never forget: he is not your friend.

Paulo Coelho's Blog.

Prayer

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield,
but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant that I may not be a coward,
feeling Your mercy in my success alone;

But let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Searching for Meaning

When you are encountered by a suffering, it is not the physical pain that comes with the unexpected loss that, but the mental agony caused by the injustice and the unreasonableness of it all. It is then, that one needs to understand the reality of life, which is that life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. Even in the gravest situations, the greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. 

They say that there can be three possible sources for meaning: at work, when you are doing something significant, in love when you care for another person, and in courage during difficult times. 

Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. At one point, a person may remain brave, dignified and unselfish, or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. While only a few people are examples of the former, but it is sufficient proof that man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.

The most enduring insight, one that I have called on often in my own life and in countless counseling situations is that forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing: your freedom to choose how you will respond to your suffering. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

Paulo Coehlo's Blog.

That's her!

Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have you.... The one who turns to his friends and says, 'That's Her!'

Each Man Kills

And each man kills the thing he loves,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword.

[Quoting Oscar Wilde in The Valkyries...]

It is not the critic who counts

It is not the critic who counts;
Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
Who strives valiantly;
Who errs and comes short again and again;
Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;
Who spends himself in a worthy cause;
Who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
And who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
So that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Be that kind of woman!

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says, 'Oh Crap, She's up!' Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right, love the one's who don't just because you can. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. God never said life would be easy. He just promised it would be worth it.

Courtesy, Sarah K

Life never gives, it only lends

Life never gives, it only lends.

No matter how much you want your life to change, it does not change unless it has to. We might think that we are trying too much, or not trying hard enough; but the truth is - it seems that its all been written in the books... for better, for worse, sickness, health... everything. It does not matter if you want roses, or you prefer diamonds, life only gives what it can lend by the books.

Is there anything we can do about it? Yes there is. The only thing we can do is learn to live with what we have and pretend to make the most of it. And when things are not the way we want them to be, we need to keep the game face on so that we can pretend that every thing is fine and secretly keep telling ourselves that its going to be okay. Because remember, the upside for every tragedy is that life never gives, it only lends [for a while].

Isbah Z