How wrongly we think...

that our parents are disappointed in us...

Parents only want what is good and though one cannot doubt their intentions, their way of going about this may often be wrong.

However, it is when children tie themselves up in knots trying to keep on the path that their parents have charted out, that trouble starts.

Parents and children themselves have to realize and understand that they are all individuals in their own right. As such, though their lives are joined by Life, they are each responsible and answerable to Life for their own lives. Being the older ones in the relationship, we must offer, indeed shower, our children with unconditional love and release them so that they can find themselves and fulfill their own destiny.

This man is different...

Hajji Ghalib, who, at 54, has only a lifetime of bad memories, and who has lost a long list of relatives, including both his wives, his daughters, a sister and a grandchild at the hands of the Taliban, has chosen to reject bitterness and lead the fight against the Taliban and Islamic State across Eastern Afghanistan.

This is the story of a man wrongly branded an enemy combatant and imprisoned in Guantánamo for nearly four years, He now emerges as a steadfast American ally on the battlefield.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/world/asia/once-inguantanamo-afghan-now-leads-war-against-taliban-and-isis.html?emc=edit_th_20151128&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=58824118&_r=0


Why I included this in my blog is because something about this story touched a chord in my heart. We probably lose one-thousandth of what this man has lost, we suffer maybe one-millionth of what this man has suffered, and we are treated badly maybe one-zillionth of how this man has been treated by Life and by people. We give up, we lose heart, we buckle under the pain, we paralyze ourselves allowing our negative, depressing thoughts to drag us down lower and lower into a bottomless pit of despair suffering. Look at this man.....look at his face and find solace and strength in the lines of his face and the sadness in the depths of his eyes...

It just takes a drop of love...

as this nun proves...

Sister Neyda Rojas, a Catholic nun, has been serving God for more than 17 years in Venezuela's General Penitentiary (PGV) in Guarico state. The inmates of this penitentiary call her La Gota Blanca (The White Drop), because of her white habit.

"I have always seen the face of God in their faces", she says.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34931359

As always, one just needs to reach out....just a little love....some person out there needs to know someone cares...

An absolutely fantastic take on growing old----er.....

From Dr. Oliver Sacks

I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.


Doesn't this open up a whole new way of thinking? Doesn't it give you a warm, complete, delicious sort of feeling? Isn't this the best way forward from old to older to o--l--d--e--r?

Talking about...

Loving ourselves unconditionally...

I had written that while we extend our love and time and energy outwards, it is very difficult when we have to - need to direct it towards ourselves.

While my DD fills my whole life and being, I find I have also been able to give of myself to those who have turned to me for comfort or encouragement or friendship or light-hearted, happy times. However, quite obviously, I have been quite incapable of turning these towards myself. My DD gave me a sound talking to and I realized I had to do something concrete about this. Am working on it....

I am battling with the question of why...

Came across this in connection with Tchaikovsky's life - Even though Tchaikovsky frequently lamented his “wearing, maddening depression,” perhaps most remarkable yet quintessentially human about his disposition was the ability to assure his loved ones of the very things he was unable to internalize himself — for who among us hasn’t found that it is far easier to offer light to our dearest humans in situations that leave our own inner worlds shrouded in impenetrable darkness?

Now I believe I can leave the darkness behind....

Adding to the greatest gift...

we can give ourselves...Freedom...

Being free and living for myself in freedom would also mean taking an inventory of the past and putting it away. As Uncle Jack tells Scout in 'Go Set A Watchman': 'It's always easy to see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are.' 

Stop seeing today in the light and shade of yesterday...all the yesterdays...

I have to stop beating myself up, or patting myself on the back for all that is past...and ask:

Who am I today?

What am I today?

Because when I see what I am today, I will have to do something about it...Face it, change it, remodel it.....for tomorrow I must ask these questions again....

The greatest gift...

we can give ourself....yes, definitely ourself...especially ourself...

is the gift of freedom.

The freedom to just be...so that there is no pretending out of fear, or out of the need for acceptance, or to make an impression, or for any reason at all....

We need to love ourselves unconditionally if we want to be really free. This seems difficult, because while we can and do extend our love unconditionally outwards, it is very difficult when it has to be directed inwards, towards us...very difficult.

I came across these words by Emery Allen (am only using those that hit me between the eyes): There's a lot of wonderful time to be spent discovering yourself. You need to fill yourself up with love. Become a whole being on your own. .......sit in a coffee shop on  your own,.......dress up for yourself, smile a lot. Do all things with love, but don't romanticize life.... Live for yourself. Be happy on your own.