losing perspective
why is it so hard for us to retain perspective, to calibrate our lives in accordance with the world around us and not just relative to our own lives across time? as i walked home from school today, i saw a man furiously moving forward on his wheelchair and wondered - what if i were him? then i saw a homeless man limping along with a walking stick and wondered the same thing. there is a hospital across the street from me, and i couldn't help but feel fortunate that i was not a patient there. my mind wandered then to incidents in my own life. i once had a car accident that gave me a back/neck problem i still suffer from. occasionally. big deal. it could have been so much worse. so then why is it such a big deal? every now and then when i suffer from a cold and cough, why does it feel like such a big deal? why can i not retain this awareness of the world around me? that there are so many worse off. that i am far more fortunate than i realize, and far more fortunate than i have respect for being.
this relates, again, to attachment, expectations, taking things for granted, lack of humility, not enough gratitude, etc. - all the things i've been giving considerable thought these days. the ideal of feeling and showing gratitude for everything i have, i fear, would be very difficult to attain. somehow i need to tie this in with my heuristics on achieving permanence and the idea that everything is a gift. (see below for both posts.) maybe those will bring me closer to the ideal, one hopes.
the old persian saying comes to mind:
i wept because i had no shoes, until i saw a man who had no feet.
must we need to see someone else's sadness to inspire our own happiness? the thought makes my stomach turn. we must constantly strive to retain an awareness of the reality of this world, and an awareness of how far up along the curve we (many of us) are. i believe that it would make us fundamentally happier beings. that i am able to sit in the comfort, peace and quiet of my home and type these lines on my laptop; that i have the intellectual capacity and skill to even articulate what i think into words; that i can - in the first place - think these thoughts - these are all very serious reasons to be grateful beyond words. and really, the list does go on.
this relates, again, to attachment, expectations, taking things for granted, lack of humility, not enough gratitude, etc. - all the things i've been giving considerable thought these days. the ideal of feeling and showing gratitude for everything i have, i fear, would be very difficult to attain. somehow i need to tie this in with my heuristics on achieving permanence and the idea that everything is a gift. (see below for both posts.) maybe those will bring me closer to the ideal, one hopes.
the old persian saying comes to mind:
i wept because i had no shoes, until i saw a man who had no feet.
must we need to see someone else's sadness to inspire our own happiness? the thought makes my stomach turn. we must constantly strive to retain an awareness of the reality of this world, and an awareness of how far up along the curve we (many of us) are. i believe that it would make us fundamentally happier beings. that i am able to sit in the comfort, peace and quiet of my home and type these lines on my laptop; that i have the intellectual capacity and skill to even articulate what i think into words; that i can - in the first place - think these thoughts - these are all very serious reasons to be grateful beyond words. and really, the list does go on.
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