The Other Side of the Lake

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. Warrior...

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

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...