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MY SUNDAY JOURNAL
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Feature
9-1-02
KNOW CONTENTMENT NOW
Montaigne tells about King Pyrrhus preparing to attack a country and his
counselor asked why.
Pyrrhus said, "So I can then attack Gaul and Spain."
The counselor asked, "And then?"
"I will subdue Africa, then bring the whole world under my
subjection."
"What then?"
"Well, then I will sit down and rest and find a great
contentment."
The counselor said, "What hinder you from reaching your ultimate
goal of contentment right now? Just sitting down now, resting and
finding contentment and sparing yourself all the labor and stress and
danger?"
Why is it we feel life's battles must all be fought and won before we
can be satisfied? This instant you can settle yourself into a state of
calmness without the whole world being under your control. Once we gain
control, we must maintain control and the maintaining is as stressful as
the gaining.
Every day we try to seize control over our little world with its people
and issues is a day we miss in directing our own soul into deep inner
peace. We will not be productive in any good endeavor without peace.
Control is not where the power is. Its in peace.
YET, DO SOMETHING
One of my dearest friends retired and when I asked if he was doing a
project he had often talked of doing once he retired, he said "I
have discovered the pleasure of doing nothing."
I discovered he had been doing something. A little fun game. We are not
made to do nothing.
We are built for action. We have legs to get up and go. We have arms to
reach and touch things that interest us. We have a brain that cannot be
turned off. It can only be directed and the only way to direct it is to
find things it likes to think about.
Every brain needs a project, even if it's only finding new trails to
walk, new ways to relax, people to enjoy or whatever.
All we need to do to find happiness and fulfillment is to let our brain
tell us what it wants to do, and set the rest of our body to doing it.
It's not a matter of mind control. It's listening to our mind. Tuning
into our likes and loves and desires and dreams.
Don't be constantly talking to your brain, giving it orders, bossing it
around. It's your friend. Listen to it.
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