I used to collect quotes the way children collect playing cards. I would laud each one, storing it away in notebooks that grew beyond the cardboard sheaths. in time quotes turned into passages and passages into books, becoming the library that fills my living space. These quotes, passages, and finally stories brought me joy and also understanding. As I move deeper into myself in search of a core understanding–of a way to move forward, I’ve returned to that core collection of quotes. I’ve bathed in the thoughts of Thich Nhat Hanh, Deepak Chopra, and so many others who offer a path towards mindfulness and towards inner peace.
Another author, Deborah Reber writes, ” Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” That is an important step to take, as it is important to craft a life that is filled with joy and not pain, though often the source of one can be the source of the other through circumstance and emotion. This is why I must let go and let what must happen, abandoning that sense of right and wrong and the corrosive effects of the imbalance that colors my life. Meanwhile I turn inward, hopeful of what I can become as an individual and quietly cultivating what that is.
Some Thoughts:
- Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” But it is important to consider what we are hoping for. Are we hoping for the impossible–something that cannot exist because too many steps were taken away from that dream and now it is too damaged, too one-sided to be anything more than currently exists? Or do we hope that what is happening–what forms the impossible itself is misunderstood?