Is it any wonder we have any time left for worrying about or trying to change what we cannot change? Especially trying to change another person, pointing out what they are doing wrong, or judging a part of them when we do not know the full measure of their story.
I am talking about this because I have to remind myself of it on a daily basis. The more I focus on my own growth, the less time I have to worry about yours. I have also discovered that if I work on being my best me, vulnerable and capable and stumbling and trying again and again, then perhaps I set the stage for others to do the same.
Side note: I would have done well to have lived in yesteryear, when people talked flowery and with long sentences. I just never know where to stop, so sometimes I don’t.
As you know, I have written over 300 Love Notes in my day, so if this is a repeat, please forgive me. But perhaps I need to hear it again, and maybe you do too.
I am reading Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday, and it is so, so good. In this particular part of the book, he is talking about our fears and the stories behind our fears. I have a few friends who think that if we have fear, it is not of God, and that is most possibly true. But I am human, and I face fear more often than I want to tell you.
That does not mean I always back down and let fear have its way, but I most surely experience it. And it does not make me doubt my faith. It makes me grab onto it a little tighter. It causes me to seek, and in the seeking I am stronger, and I think the world around me is better for it.
Ryan Holiday writes in Courage Is Calling:
“The battle against fear is a full-time job. None of us have it handled so well that we can afford to spend much time monitoring how others are with theirs, then and/or now. The best we can try to do is learn from our peers, past and present, and apply their lessons to our own lives.”
That is why I spend so much time reading and studying, and it is why I say time and again that books saved my life.
Xenophon was a great Athenian cavalry commander in Persia. His troops were in despair and were faced with an enemy they knew was there but could not see. They were frozen with fear and frustration, just waiting for the next bad event. Xenophon told them they would have to choose between two attitudes. One that said, What is going to happen to me? and the other that said, What action am I going to take?
Thankfully, most of us are not fighting real-life battles against an unseen enemy, but we are fighting other battles that feel just as real to us. I know that for me, it comes down to how I choose to react. And if I am spending my time trying to tell others how to act, maybe, just maybe, I should spend that time doing the next right thing myself. Perhaps others will follow.
In this line of work, there are so many fears that could befall us. But I know that my strength, and your strength, comes from renewing our own minds and tending to what is right in front of us.
What action am I going to take?
And in a more modern thought:
Are you waiting for the other shoe to drop, or will you put it on and walk ahead?
The greatest of gratitude,
Karen
