Meditations on God

Celebrating Art

When we first start practicing our art, it will be ugly.

It will be messy.

Things will not work the way we want them to.

What we imagine will not be what happens.

Our desires and our intentions will not clearly manifest through our efforts.

We will fumble and get frustrated.

We will get discouraged.

If we are going to quit, this is the time to do it.

If, on the other hand, we embrace the ugliness, the messiness, the frustration, and the discouragement, if we persist, if we continue to practice, and if we push forward in spite of all that seems to be lacking, we will begin to notice improvement.

It will be slow, it will be hard-won, and it will be inconsistent, but it will be improvement nonetheless.

If we get this far with our art, we will have gotten further than most people do.

Over time, our work will become a little bit less ugly and a little less messy.

Our frustration and discouragement will become a little less frequent and pronounced.

Eventually, we will come to discover that, where before we were attempting art, now we are doing art.

This is an achievement worth celebrating.

March 6, 2021

art, improvement, persistence, practice

Set Up To Fail

No one likes being set up to fail.

We all want to succeed and we hope or assume that others want us to succeed as well.

So when we are asked or required to complete a task, we tend to have an expectation that whoever is asking us to do so has thought about what it will take to get it done and has accounted for that in their request.

This is not always the case, however.

In fact, this is often not the case.

When we set out to accomplish whatever it is we are supposed to do and begin to run into unexpected, or even expected, obstacles and resistance along the way, it is easy to get frustrated especially if we were unprepared or underprepared from the beginning.

When this happens, it is easy to assume the worst and think that we were intentionally or negligently set up to fail.

This is especially true if we tend to be overly prepared ourselves and, therefore, expect the same from others.

The truth is that most people are not ill intentioned.

They are just like us.

They are fumbling through life and trying their best just like we are.

Besides, being upset about something that has already happened will not take us back in time to fix it anyway.

Instead of feeling slighted, hurt, or frustrated, we will be better served by being patient, compassionate, and understanding of the fact that no one is perfect, least of all us.

When it is our turn to make requests of others, hopefully we will keep this experience in mind so that we can do better for them than has been done for us.

Inevitably, however, we will be on the other side of this experience some day and we will be the ones asking others to do things that we have not fully thought through.

They will feel as though we set them up to fail even if we did not.

Life has a funny way of reflecting back to us what we have put into the world.

We should keep this in mind when we feel put upon, let down, or like we were set up to fail.

Chances are, our actions have or will make someone else feel the same way at some point.

March 5, 2021

compassion, failure, karma, patience, success, understanding

Focus On Your Work

It is easier than ever to find ourselves being drawn into controversies, arguments, and debates we normally would not even hear about, let alone care about.

The volume with which we are presented with new issues, new agendas, and new slights is stressfully overwhelming.

It is too much to keep up with and yet we try.

The immediate availability and convenience of drama somehow makes us feel as if we should participate in it simply because it is there, in our faces, waiting for us to stick our nose in it, to add our two cents, and to try to influence or fix it.

There is nothing to fix, however, at least not where we are looking.

Engaging with manufactured drama on platforms selling our attention to the highest bidder is not how change is made in the world, at least not positive, meaningful, and long-lasting change.

That type of change is made in our hearts, in our homes, and in our relationships.

It is made by doing good work, by creating something we care about, and by sharing that with people who want to receive it.

Every moment wasted on algorithm-generated drama is time, energy, and attention not given to the work we should be doing that actually means something, that actually fulfills us, and that will actually make the world a better place.

March 4, 2021

change, creative work, creativity, effort

Anger’s Sunk Cost

Anger tricks us.

It tricks us into believing that it will help us to overcome our problems, but the truth is that it only makes them worse.

It tricks us into thinking that it will bring us closer to that which we seek while simultaneously moving us further and further away from it.

It tricks us into solitude, telling us that it will provide us with enough company and comfort to sustain us when, in the end, anger will only leave us miserable, alone, and afraid.

And, anger tricks us into feeling as if the more time and energy we spend feeding into it, the more righteous, justified, and virtuous we become when nothing could be further from the truth.

This last characteristic of anger is particularly heinous.

It causes us to think of anger as an investment.

It tells us that we must continue to give more and more of ourselves to it in order to someday receive the much awaited payout.

That payout will never come, however, and anger is a difficult thing to let go of once we have invested so much of our time, our energy, and our identity into it.

If we are to overcome our anger, if we are to live a life of fruitful joy and contentment, we must not fall prey to the anger’s sunk cost fallacy.

The more we invest in our anger, the more it will take from us.

It never works the other way around.

We will never get our time, our happiness, and our relationships back through anger.

We have to learn to cut our losses and move on, away from anger and toward something else, something wholesome and truthful.

Anger is a liar and a thief.

We can and we must do better than to rely on it for guidance.

Even if we have held onto our anger for a long time, especially if we have held onto our anger for a long time, we must let go.

The light is waiting for us, but it can only be found on the other side of anger.

March 3, 2021

anger, contentment, joy

Creating The Future

Will the person you hope to be tomorrow be proud of the decisions you made today?

Forethought is a luxury.

It means that we have the time, the tools, and the intelligence to be able to consider our lives beyond this moment, beyond the immediate need to survive.

It means that, all things considered, we are probably doing alright.

With this in mind, if we have the luxury of forethought in our lives, we should not waste it.

We should use it to our advantage.

No matter how difficult it may be to do so, we have to think beyond this moment, beyond what we think we need right now.

We have to imagine who we hope to be in the future and we must act in a way now that allows for that possibility later.

Our future selves are depending on our decisions in the present being the right ones.

We have to make this moment count.

It is the only one we get.

March 2, 2021

choices, decisions, forethought, potential

Celebrating Art

Share this:

Set Up To Fail

Share this:

Focus On Your Work

Share this:

Anger’s Sunk Cost

Share this:

Creating The Future

Share this: