Meditations on God

What You Need
If you always got what you wanted, you would find yourself deeply disappointed.

You may think you know what you want, but you most likely do not know what you need.

You want an easy, enjoyable life.

What you need, however, is difficulty, friction, and growth.

You may choose these things in one way or another already, but you are highly unlikely to choose them in the ways that you truly need.

When you get what you want, you get a mirror.

You get a reflection of who you already are.

When you get what you need, you get a glimpse into who you can be.

Who you are will be challenged by what you need to face.

Through these challenges, you get to become someone new, better, and stronger.

Getting what you want is easy.

Accepting and embracing what you need is where the real work is done.
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October 10, 2023

challenges, desire, growth, need, want
Like Empathy
The other morning on our walk to school, my daughter asked me, “Daddy, do you ever feel melancholy?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” I replied. “I suppose I do feel melancholy from time to time.”

“When you feel melancholy,” she continued, “do you listen to happy music or sad music?”

“That’s a good question, dear. It depends. Sometimes I like to listen to happy music to lift my spirits when I’m feeling down, but other times I prefer to listen to sad music,” I explained.

Puzzled, she asked, “Why would you want to listen to sad music when you are already sad?”

I paused for a moment to reflect and answered, “I guess sometimes listening to sad music when I’m feeling melancholy helps me feel better.”

“How?” she asked.

“I think sad music helps me to know that I am not alone in my sadness,” I explained. “When I hear a sad song, it is telling me that this other person has felt this feeling also. So I am not the only one who has ever felt this way. That gives me some comfort, I suppose, some hope.”

“Like empathy?” she asked.

“Yes, dear. Like empathy,” I responded with a smile. “Empathy has the power to heal.”
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October 9, 2023

bittersweet, compassion, empathy, healing, melancholy, music, sadness
Do What You Can
Do what you can.

Do no more.

Do no less.

Push yourself to your limits.

But respect your limitations.

And do not settle for giving less than all you’ve got.
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October 8, 2023

effort, limitations
A Happy Surprise
Happiness is a strange thing.

It is not sustainable, nor is it meant to be.

What makes you happy momentarily will not keep you happy forever.

When you expect happiness to be permanent, you are setting yourself up for disappointment when it inevitably fades.

Because of its transient nature, the pursuit of happiness is also the inadvertent pursuit of unhappiness because when you pursue happiness, you are pursuing something that you cannot keep.

It is better, therefore, to let happiness come to you.

Happiness is better experienced as a pleasant surprise than as an expectation.

When it comes, it comes and when it goes, it goes.

By removing expectations, you get to experience happiness in the moment without being let down when it leaves you.

Enjoy whatever moments of happiness you are fortunate enough to experience.

Be present for them without clinging to them or chasing them and you may find that they are more plentiful and more meaningful than when you anticipate or expect them.
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October 7, 2023

experience, happiness, joy, pleasure
Understanding To Be Understood
It is easier to understand others than it is to get them to understand you.

Trying to be understood can be an extremely frustrating venture.

Not only that, but it is also very difficult to accomplish.

The more you feel the need to be understood, it seems, the more elusive it becomes.

Trying to be understood can be like attempting to catch a feather in a windstorm or, more accurately, attempting to get someone else to catch a feather in a windstorm.

This does not mean that you cannot get some of your ideas, emotions, or experiences across to someone else.

You can, but you are more complex than even the sum total of these.

It is far easier, and often more fruitful, to be the one who understands.

Be the one who listens and actually hears, and who observes and actually sees.

Be the person who cares and who feels for others.

This will give you the connection you crave and it will actually help you to be more understood yourself.

By understanding where others are coming from, what motivates them, and even what frightens them, you begin to understand how to communicate with them, and to communicate, in the truest sense of the word, is to be understood.

Understanding others, therefore, is the gateway to being understood yourself.
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October 6, 2023

caring, communication, compassion, empathy, feeling, understanding

What You Need

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Like Empathy

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Do What You Can

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A Happy Surprise

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Understanding To Be Understood

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