Christmas just passed and the new year is almost here. I hope nobody stressed too much and that you are all relaxed from celebrating this most beautiful, wondrous time of the year. And that you are ready to welcome 2007 with all of its promises. If you're the teeniest bit stressed, I'd like you to stop for a few minutes and contemplate the points in the following message that one of my daughters received from her mother in law who'd received it from someone else. The original sender has been lost on the electron highway.
"The head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten. Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts. A woman was late for work at the twin towers because her alarm clock didn't go off on time. One person was late because an auto accident closed the New Jersey Turnpike. Another missed his bus.
"One spilled food on her clothes and took time to change. Another's car wouldn't start.
"Another went back to answer the telephone. One couldn't get a taxi, another had a child that dawdled.
"One man put on a new pair of shoes which gave him blisters, so before he arrived for work at the Pentagon, he stopped to buy a Band-Aid.
"Now, when I'm stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone, all the little things that annoy me, I think to myself, 'this is exactly where God wants me to be at this very moment.'
"The next time your morning seems to be going wrong, the children are slow at getting dressed, you can't find the car keys, you hit every red light, don't get mad or frustrated; God is at work watching over you. May God continue to bless you with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose."
I think this message about the little annoyances in our lives, especially as we begin a new year, should remind us that our reactions to whatever happens to us are the key to feeling God's love.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
The Meaning of Life
Everyone needs to have meaning in life—a reason to get out of bed. As a generally optimistic person this comes fairly easy to me. But the times that I feel that I have no meaning or purpose, I get a small glimmer of what it is like to be depressed and otherwise in wonder of what the meaning of life is.
I have just completed reading Viktor E. Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”. I have wanted to read it for years after hearing it quoted from on many occasions. I finally bought it while killing time at the UVSC bookstore while waiting around for Lindsey’s Miss UVSC practice. It was a great bargain for $6.99.
Viktor tells the story of his experience while in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. As a psychotherapist he states that “it is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task”.
He also quotes Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how. This could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic efforts.”
‘Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.’ Therefore, tasks give purpose, and purpose gives us a will to live and get out of bed the next day.
Sometimes this will is from just looking forward to the next meal, or a craving for something. It often comes to me as I look toward the weekend, or a special event. Thus, we need to place items in our lives that we can look forward to: a trip in the future, a get together with friends or loved ones, or a chance to sit down and read a book or do something that we enjoy.
Latter day saints have a built in goal to look forward to and that is eternal life to be spent with loved ones in a celestial world with a promise of a painless existence with a perfected body. On a whole, we should be optimistic with this hope at all times, but after a big event, I tend to get that let down feeling. I’ve accomplished something, completed a trip, finished up a major project and now what. I can lie in bed and feel lazy and wonder what I should get up and do. I’m glad that this feeling doesn’t come around too often. May we always find meaning and purpose in life.
I have just completed reading Viktor E. Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”. I have wanted to read it for years after hearing it quoted from on many occasions. I finally bought it while killing time at the UVSC bookstore while waiting around for Lindsey’s Miss UVSC practice. It was a great bargain for $6.99.
Viktor tells the story of his experience while in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. As a psychotherapist he states that “it is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task”.
He also quotes Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how. This could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic efforts.”
‘Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.’ Therefore, tasks give purpose, and purpose gives us a will to live and get out of bed the next day.
Sometimes this will is from just looking forward to the next meal, or a craving for something. It often comes to me as I look toward the weekend, or a special event. Thus, we need to place items in our lives that we can look forward to: a trip in the future, a get together with friends or loved ones, or a chance to sit down and read a book or do something that we enjoy.
Latter day saints have a built in goal to look forward to and that is eternal life to be spent with loved ones in a celestial world with a promise of a painless existence with a perfected body. On a whole, we should be optimistic with this hope at all times, but after a big event, I tend to get that let down feeling. I’ve accomplished something, completed a trip, finished up a major project and now what. I can lie in bed and feel lazy and wonder what I should get up and do. I’m glad that this feeling doesn’t come around too often. May we always find meaning and purpose in life.
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