It's so easy to become offended. It actually comes pretty natural. Someone says something. You feel it's directed at you Strong reaction follows No need to react, it's got nothing to do with you as a person Imagine some remarks about academic work versus manual one, a bit dismissive about the latter. You don't have a degree and never wanted one. You know very well it takes years of experience and training to do what you're doing. Talent is involved too, as some people do have "two left hands". You still feel you should add something to the conversation, but not sure if it is going to be well-received. No need to enlighten the other party right now Most people think in terms of opposites. If it's not this, it's that and it can't be anything else. Certainty of one's convictions is also a form of self-reassurance that everything is stable in one's world. Other points of view cannot be allowed because they are disruptive. Cognitive disrup
It's heard everywhere, the call-to-arms type of appeal: "Be strong". Fortitude is praised, resilience is envied.
Stiff upper lip, a straight back, eyes never looking down, an assured step.
You know the lot, romantic propaganda has been disseminating it for ages and philosophers have usually gone along with it.
If the physical body is in any way a manifestation of our true essence. It has been a good recipe to save face when confronted with adversity. We could say at least that we got beaten down, but not vanquished.
No one seems to care much about non-exceptional situations, when inner strength is not just a slogan, but a consumable, quickly exhausted by the continuous drip-drip of demands. Life is usually exacting a heavy price just by allowing us to experience it. We are not immortal, are we?
With no clarions to sound the battle and its total lack of pomp, there is though a secret source fuelling it up: humility. Or shall we call it humbleness?
Once events and people are received with gratitude (lessons and teachers, who said that?), everything becomes more bearable. Small miracles may happen too. There may be a spring in the step at times, as life’s burden gets lighter and sometimes we may not even feel it at all.
I could not agree more, they are all virtuous expressions of some kind of inner steely mechanism, the kind that triumphs over misfortune and does not recoil before blatant injustice.
Stiff upper lip, a straight back, eyes never looking down, an assured step.
You know the lot, romantic propaganda has been disseminating it for ages and philosophers have usually gone along with it.
If the physical body is in any way a manifestation of our true essence. It has been a good recipe to save face when confronted with adversity. We could say at least that we got beaten down, but not vanquished.
No one seems to care much about non-exceptional situations, when inner strength is not just a slogan, but a consumable, quickly exhausted by the continuous drip-drip of demands. Life is usually exacting a heavy price just by allowing us to experience it. We are not immortal, are we?
Add all the various things we are expected to do for others or that we set ourselves as a task to do. The greyness of daily existence is a plateau of repetitive acts and hamster-wheel par excellence. It requires a different type of strength, the true untarnished one.
With no clarions to sound the battle and its total lack of pomp, there is though a secret source fuelling it up: humility. Or shall we call it humbleness?
Whatever the name of this resource is, the true strength that underlies normal living cannot co-exist with vanity, pride or ego (again, name it as you wish).
Once events and people are received with gratitude (lessons and teachers, who said that?), everything becomes more bearable. Small miracles may happen too. There may be a spring in the step at times, as life’s burden gets lighter and sometimes we may not even feel it at all.
We are at our strongest when we don’t need to be strong at all.
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