25 Oct ???”You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enrich the world.” Woodrow Wilson
I recently stumbled upon this quote from Woodrow Wilson. At first glance I worried about posting it, worried that when we’re in a painful or low or stuck place that any invitation to contribute to the world feels way too much.
Yet, there’s truth to it. Truth to living a good life. When we suffer it’s not for naught. When we’re in the middle of “it” we can’t possibly see what purpose this serves.
That’s were perspective is so helpful. Even when we’re in the middle of ka-ka land it’s not all ka-ka. There are moments when it eases, when we feel less stuck, when we laugh, or feel a sense of ease. The morass might overcome us quickly but it still was there.
Our task, at those times, is to train ourselves to watch for those simple moments of ease, of balance, of quiet. Our tentacles so usually trained to notice hurts, shames, rejections can be retrained to see what is life enhancing instead.
What begins to develop when we train our minds and our hearts in this way is the flourishing of a being who has encountered difficulty and been transformed by it. Each of us will emerge in a different way. Each of us contributing to enhancing the world in small yet important ways.