Everything we have, everything we know, and everyone we love will someday be gone. We will all be gone someday too.
Permanence is a delusion, and although the idea of permanence can sometimes be comfortable—making us feel secure and stable—it can also make us unprepared for the changes in our lives.
If we feel we can maintain our lives just the way they are in any given moment, we will invariably be frustrated and disappointed.
We all have something to learn from our past.
Our personal history is a rich source of experiences that we can learn from and that can help us live a healthy and meaningful life. We can draw on our past experiences when we face challenges, enter unknown territory, or have a difficult decision to make. We shouldn’t live in the past, but we shouldn’t ignore it, either. The past can help us predict the outcomes of our actions and help guide us in achieving our goals.
Looking, waiting, and wondering.
Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?
It’s a very common thing to constantly be looking forward to, planning for, or thinking about something coming up.
There often seems to an implicit assumption that the future will be, in some way, better than now. But the truth is that the light at the end of the tunnel is overrated. It always looks better than it is, and it never quite arrives.
The trick is to make the tunnel our own. With the right perspective, the tunnel itself can become the light.
The ability to keep at something—to not give up—is often underestimated. When working toward a goal, the willingness to work consistently at a sustained level is a critical factor for success. In many cases, perseverance is just as important, if not more important than, talent or intelligence. I might have all the skills in the world, but if I can’t be disciplined about working on my goal every day, talent doesn’t do me much good.
Have you ever had a burning desire for something that you couldn’t have?
How did you handle it?
We all have desires: relationships, jobs, things. Sometimes we get what we want, and sometimes we don’t. It’s often difficult to accept when we fail. We try to figure out different ways of getting something we may never have. This is not necessarily a bad thing as long as we remain honest with ourselves about our actions and our motives.