Lessons, knowledge, habits, do not hammer them into yourself. You are not a piece of wood that is to be hammered into. Learn at your pace. Let life take you gently by the hand.
When you go swimming at the beach, you do not have to be dunked in the water. Swim and enjoy.
Live life, learn, and enjoy. Beloveds, there is no emergency. There is no purpose in demanding too much of yourself.
You can be leisurely in life, well, depending upon your definition of leisurely. When you go to work, work. The point I want to make is that urgency or desperation don’t belong to you. Neither holds you in good standing. Be easy with everything. You don’t have to be obstinate or resistant anymore than you have to be all-embracing.
If you are a child in school, and you are obliged to learn something that is not meaningful to you, go ahead and learn it, yet know this is not really an emergency. In this case, it is something the world makes you pay attention to. It’s not worth fighting it. So just do it, and know that your life doesn’t depend upon it. Count your causes.
It is not for you to be adamant about life. You don’t have to take a stand on every matter. You do not lose your integrity by getting something done and out of the way.
Maybe you are the mother, and you don’t like doing the dishes. Okay, don’t like doing the dishes, but get them done as you go along. Take washing dishes in your stride. Don’t make doing dishes an issue. Doing dishes is a way of life in the world.
Maybe you don’t like getting up in the morning, yet getting up in the morning is a part of life. It does not have to be arduous to get up, even when you are getting up in the dark. It would be lovely if you had to get up only when the sun came up. However, life in the world at present may well not accommodate this idea. Very often, beloveds, it is for you to accommodate to life. Not everything is worth fighting. You don’t have to dig a hole for yourself in the interests of self-authentication.
Ah, now, there can be something that is false to yourself. Know when it is, and don’t be false to yourself. There is a line beyond which you cannot go. You don’t have to break the law. Even under duress, you don’t have to. You don’t have to prove anything. Fighting everything does not you a fighter make. It might make you a squabbler.
You don’t always have to give in to life, and you don’t always have to push back. You do have choices, and choices are for you to decide. A firefighter who fights fires doesn’t fight everything in life.
Nor am I saying that you must always compromise, as if you are to sell yourself short. If your wife wants to eat in a certain restaurant, what do you give up by going to the restaurant of your wife’s choice?
Everything in life may be much more simple than you may see at a particular moment. Has this not happened to you? Later, after the fact, you wonder what all the fuss was about.
We are not talking about winning a hand, beloveds, nor are We talking about playing a losing hand. Let Us be talking about being equitable in life, as if we were on a seesaw, and it is the same really whether you are up or down. What difference does it make? All aboard in life! What do you want your life to be consumed with? What is important and what isn’t important? What might you change, and what might you keep the same? Your reaction to life does not have to be automatic, beloveds. You simply have choices to make.