I often wonder if I am headed in the right direction. Have I made the right decisions? I know I've made mistakes, but have I made the right "Big" decisions?I have always been taught that if we believe in God and listen to his word, the Bible, then we will be okay. I sort of believe that and I definitely believe there is a higher power out there, but the Bible doesn't give me a full perspective on life. Maybe it's the time difference; the fact that the great book was written 2000+ years ago.
We visited Yorktown, VA. The last major battle of the US revolutionary war against the English. The Americans were outnumbered, out gunned, and running. Washington thought that the battle of New York City was the endgame. Then the French showed up and said, "hey, we'll help you out but we are only going to go to Virginia. We will not help you in New York." Four days later Washington scrapped his attack plans for New York and had plans to move the troops 400 miles south to Virginia.
The French and Americans laid siege to Yorktown and captured 5000 British troops. 1/3 of their army in the colonies. Game over for the British. Six months prior to this battle General George Washington wrote in letters to those closest to him that he didn't see any hope for the revolution.
We also visited the Wright Brothers memorial in Kitty Hawk, NC. Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first people to fly an airplane with an engine in 1903. In 1901-1902 their testing had failed. Wilbur turned to his brother and said something like this, "Not in 1000 years will man learn to fly." A year later they were flying.
These two examples in modern US history have taught me that sometimes things are not what they seem. Sometimes we give up too early. Sometimes I've been tempted to give up and these examples have given me a reason to rethink some of the doubts and worries I have been having over the last few weeks.
3 comments:
You have to live today.
It's a basic concept, but like many basic concepts, most people gloss over them and miss the importance.
You can plan for tomorrow. You should remember yesterday. But you have to live today.
We never know how our decisions will turn out. Life is chaotic, in both a literal and philosophical sense: random events can be magnified to huge intensity, whereas major events can be marginalized to insignificance. Action causes reaction, which causes further action. The chain of events involved in something so simple as blinking an eye are mind-bogglingly complex and intricate.
You can't open a box with a crowbar that's inside it, and you can't completely understand the complexities of life as a living being. It simply isn't in the math.
So you do the best you can with what you're given. You try to figure out a code of morals you think are important, and you try to live your life according to those morals, but because you can't open that box with the crowbar, you can't plan for all contingencies. You end up having to wing it a lot of the time.
Sometimes, we screw up. We hope we learn from these mistakes. Sometimes, we succeed amazingly; we hope we learn from these successes. But whatever happens, whether we win or lose, the only thing we can do is keep going - because we have to live today.
An author I love once wrote that the first question man asks in a bad situation is, "Why?": "Why me?" "Why have I been singled out?" "Why is the world such a horrible place?" That's understandable, and even human - we're programmed to find causes, origins, *whys*.
But what makes us more than human - what imbues us with whatever nature one thinks of as "higher" - compassion, creativity, intellect, spirituality - is the next question: "What am I going to do about it?"
And there's the key: live your life to the best of your ability, whatever that means for you. The past is a benchmark; the future is potential. Today is all we have, here, *now*, in this moment of moments.
You have to live today.
Thanks Austin. With everything going on right now the overall message I'm hearing is "one day at a time."
After you posted your comments there have been several other instances where I have experienced the same message.
I keep telling myself that I need to just concentrate on today. Get through today. Find solutions for today. But damn it is tough.
The last thought you posted about was, "what am I going to do about it?" That is good.
What am I going to do about my situation?
I am making decisions everyday to get through my situation. The thing that is killing me is I can't see how it is going to turn out.
Thanks for the thoughts Austin. It sparked some things in my life that are helping me cope/deal/decide, etc.
Sounds like life is tough, man.
Even though the Bible is pretty old, I believe it gives a pretty complete concept of life. Of course it can't answer EVERY modern-day question that people might have, but I think the principles apply pretty well.
But even more important than the Bible is, "How is your relationship with this Almighty Power that you speak of?" Seeking after Him is the most important thing you can do. I think a lot of people are learning that we MUST lean on him a lot more than ourselves.
Call me if you need a listening ear, man. Hang in there!
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