LIFE’S LESSONS
Hie friends, I have decided to give you a little lecture on
life before we step into 2012. This is my first blog so it may look a bit unprofessional,
but I hope by next year I will be having better skills than this.
We are not here just to survive and live long. We are here
to live and know life in its multi-dimensions, to know life in its richness, in
all its variety.
We discover many things on this long, sometimes strange
journey we see as life, but who were really are, is what matters most. Very often
it is from the peaks and valleys that we learn what life really is. The Dubno
Magid said, “There are certain momentous occasions in our lives where we fail
to appreciate the magnificence of the occasion because we are perhaps, too nervous
or tense, or at times, too caught up in trivial arrangements and petty
concerns.” Somehow we must find the courage to push through our anger, tears
and fears, and as the saying goes, “Everything that happens to you is your
teacher. The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be
taught by it.”
Mother Theresa once said that her most important work was
with the dying, because she considered life so precious. “A life is an
achievement and dying is the end of that achievement. It’s when we are pushed
to the edge of life that we see life most clearly. In sharing their lessons,
the dying teaches us much about the preciousness of life itself. In them we
discover the hero, that part that transcends all we have been through, and deliver
us to all we are capable of doing and being. Not just being alive, but feeling
alive.
Deep inside all of us, we know there is someone we were
meant to be. And we can feel when we are becoming that person, and the reverse
is also true. We know when something doesn’t feel quite right and we’re not the
person we were meant to be.
Consciously or not, we are on a quest of answers, trying to
learn the lessons of life. We grapple with fear and guilt. We search for
meaning, love and success. Sometimes we look for these things in the faces of
our loved ones, in religion or other places where they reside. Too often,
however, we search for them in money, status, or the ‘perfect’ job, only to
find that these things lack the meaning we had hoped to find, or worse, even brings
us heartaches. Following these free trails without a deeper understanding of
their meaning, we are inevitably left feeling empty, believing that there is
little or no meaning of life, that love and happiness are simply illusions. We see
that not all of life’s lessons are enjoyable to learn, but somehow they enrich
the texture of life.
What are the lessons life asks us to master? It becomes
clear that most of us are challenged by the same lessons: the lesson of fear,
the lesson of guilt, the lesson of anger, the lesson of forgiveness, the lesson
of surrender, the lesson of time, the lesson of patience, the lesson of love,
the lesson of relationships, the lesson of play, the lesson of loss, the lesson
of power, the lesson of authenticity and the lesson of happiness.
Learning these lessons is a little like reaching maturity. You
are not suddenly happy, wealthy or powerful, but you understand the world
around you better and you are at peace with yourself. Learning life’s lessons
is not about making your life perfect, but about seeing life as it was meant to
be. As one man happily shared,”I now delight in the imperfections of life.” When
we live multi-dimensionally and explore all possibilities, never shrinking from
any challenge, then life blossoms and becomes an eternal flame.
I appreciate your taking time to go through this, and I hope
it’s pretty much helpful to you.
Wish you a merry noel and a happy 2012..may the grace of the
Lord be upon you!!!
Peace
Nowel Chitorido
