Perspective

“Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.”   ― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Looking back on 2016, we can all probably say it was a bad year, and it was a good year. It was the best of times, the worst of times. Based on perspective. Remove what we see as bad, and even the good is diminished. The good is a little dimmer when there's nothing for comparison.

Boredom. It's our own doing. Harder to be bored in this modern age, with the electronic devices to occupy our time. But even that can become boring. We've all reached the end of the internet at some point, it seems. I know there are days when I feel there's nothing to do but sleep. And of course, that's hard to do sometimes. Boredom steals so much time from our lives. We have to work hard to avoid it, to win back those wasted hours.

Fear. The mind killer, as Frank Herbert correctly wrote. When we are afraid, when we cower inside our own mind rather than face what scares us, we are giving up precious time. Time we can't regain, since its forward movement means we're watching ourselves in the rearview mirror. Stand tall, stand strong, even when you don't feel like you are: it's the only way to earn more of those precious moments you'd otherwise miss.

Anger. The absolute worst. Nothing is more pointless than being angry. You can't change anything, or anyone. You can only resolve not to let it consume you, and keep moving. Being mad solves nothing, it only hurts you further. Sometimes the answer is to move on without the source being in your life,  other times you have to just punch a wall and deal with the broken hand. Nut you have to push past it, unless you want to endlessly tread that lukewarm water.

If you can keep things in perspective, and accept that you are the one controls your destiny.  A long fine life, indeed.


Happy New Year, readers.