Accomplishing What We Didn’t Know We Wanted
4th January, 2010 - Posted by Maude -
As people set off on a new year of accomplishing things, let’s not forget the value of not accomplishing what we set out to do - what some consider losing. That’s right, trying, striving, falling down but getting back up and figuring out what we’ve learned is as valuable in life as winning, accomplishing, and achieving. I know, I know, this is a foreign concept to most Americans, but it’s true.
If we open yourself to this truth, that not getting what we were trying for can turn out to be better than what we thought we wanted, you might just be surprised that you knew it all along. No one is saying not to try to achieve anything. There’s no need to sit like a bump in front of your television the rest of your life, slowly dying. Quite the contrary. The suggestion here is to embrace all of life - the winning and the so called losing. Life is full of birth AND death, winning and losing, grace and suffering, all of it. Isn’t your highest goal to fully embrace your life - in whatever form that takes for you? For some this is the fulfillment of religious convictions, for some this is a creative/spiritual journey, for some this fullness is primarily in relationships, for others physical challenges frame the fullness of their lives, there are many ways to be a human being and many fullnesses to be lived. When we live fully, we accept our defeats with dignity because we know that they can be just as important in retrospect as what we were striving to achieve.
The Maude advice is clear: as you resolve to achieve, resolve also to learn from every stumble, every fall you take flat on your face, every embarrassing awful disappointment. It is all a blessing. It just doesn’t feel like it in the moment. Life is a tremendous celebration if we let it all in - the joy and the struggle. And when your heart is broken let it break. When you feel grief, grieve. And when you feel your joy, whether in good times or bad, sing out!
Remember,
Give me an L, give me an I, give me a V, give me an E,
L-I-V-E
LIVE!
Go ahead and make those resolutions, start your striving. And when you accomplish your goals - hurray! And when you don’t, you might want to read this poem by our dear friend Rilke. He says things in such a nicer way than most any one.
The Man Watching
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes,
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can’t bear without a friend,
I can’t love without a sister.
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong, too, and not need names.
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the angel, who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler’s sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel,
(who often simply declined the fight),
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Ranier Marie Rilke
Translated by Robert Bly
Tags: alive, change, LIVE, Nourish Your Spirit
Posted on: January 4, 2010
Filed under: Nourish Your Spirit, Uncategorized
1 Comment
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