That's very refreshing Luc. Not long after I got married, about 2010 I think, we were having a lot of problems and were getting some counseling. The piece of advice that helped the most was to start volunteering at an assisted living home. So we went and called bingo to those old ladies for I guess three or four years. And it really was a big help. Being among people that you didn't choose, doing something for them is a huge contradiction to the on-demand, 'everything that I want and nothing that I don't' life that we live most of the time.
I'd like to end the story by saying that we made great friends and it was all roses, but what I really remember most was when one of the ladies that we had come to like and admire so much lost a lot of her cognitive function. She had seemed so alive and sharp and then next week so old and out of it. I think it was a stroke but it was a long time ago and I'm not sure I ever knew exactly.
That is a lovely anecdote, thanks for sharing. Sometimes it can even be smaller things that do the trick, like getting into the habit of forming the right intentions. I think a lot of our misery has to do with living in our own ego bubble, instead of being curious about how we can help others in the right way.
May 28, 2023·edited May 28, 2023Liked by L.P. Koch
These all seem like critical tools to me. Or maybe "tools" isn't the best word. Applied as a whole, I think they amount to cultivating the kind of inner peace and resolve necessary to not only survive but thrive in the hair-raising chaos that surrounds us.
Of course this is all easier said than done. It's almost impossible not to get angry at times (even Christ could not contain it, on at least two notable occasions). But if anger can be put to good use at all, it can also swallow us up if peace isn't the default setting.
Anger can be healthy and necessary if it is righteous and justified. But there needs to be balance. The problem is also that we can get addicted to outrage and then need our daily dose.
Exactly. And what's amazing when looking at it from the removed position of patience and peace is how so much of the Enemy’s movements of late seemed inyentionally designed to bring about a reaction of wrathful anger, in an attempt to make *that* the default setting. It's quite the devious trick, because each of the vices can look like virtues in the short term, and from a certain angle. People tend to think of provocation in all the others except for Wrath and Pride, and yet those seem to be the ascendant ones (and arguably the worst).
It's a devious trick indeed. I hope more people will find the necessary balance and stop being controlled entirely by the outrage cycles. Maybe it gets easier because online discourse is so overrun by grifters these days, and people are getting tired of it.
Reading old books was helpful; the next step for me was working out answers to the question, "How would I tell my story to these books' writers and original audiences in a way they would understand?" Consistently rewording and escaping current-day therapyspeak has allowed me a stronger, brighter, more flexible understanding of my own life.
So heartwarming and down to earth advice on what one can do to stay grounded Luc, thanks for these excellent and practical and inexpensive suggestions! I agree with when I read from a big thick hardcover book I inherited from my mother chock full of various quotes of famous and anons authors and writers of people throughout time it is so very comforting and reassuring to discover that they were no different in their humanness than we are today so many centuries later!
That's very refreshing Luc. Not long after I got married, about 2010 I think, we were having a lot of problems and were getting some counseling. The piece of advice that helped the most was to start volunteering at an assisted living home. So we went and called bingo to those old ladies for I guess three or four years. And it really was a big help. Being among people that you didn't choose, doing something for them is a huge contradiction to the on-demand, 'everything that I want and nothing that I don't' life that we live most of the time.
I'd like to end the story by saying that we made great friends and it was all roses, but what I really remember most was when one of the ladies that we had come to like and admire so much lost a lot of her cognitive function. She had seemed so alive and sharp and then next week so old and out of it. I think it was a stroke but it was a long time ago and I'm not sure I ever knew exactly.
That is a lovely anecdote, thanks for sharing. Sometimes it can even be smaller things that do the trick, like getting into the habit of forming the right intentions. I think a lot of our misery has to do with living in our own ego bubble, instead of being curious about how we can help others in the right way.
These all seem like critical tools to me. Or maybe "tools" isn't the best word. Applied as a whole, I think they amount to cultivating the kind of inner peace and resolve necessary to not only survive but thrive in the hair-raising chaos that surrounds us.
Of course this is all easier said than done. It's almost impossible not to get angry at times (even Christ could not contain it, on at least two notable occasions). But if anger can be put to good use at all, it can also swallow us up if peace isn't the default setting.
Anger can be healthy and necessary if it is righteous and justified. But there needs to be balance. The problem is also that we can get addicted to outrage and then need our daily dose.
Exactly. And what's amazing when looking at it from the removed position of patience and peace is how so much of the Enemy’s movements of late seemed inyentionally designed to bring about a reaction of wrathful anger, in an attempt to make *that* the default setting. It's quite the devious trick, because each of the vices can look like virtues in the short term, and from a certain angle. People tend to think of provocation in all the others except for Wrath and Pride, and yet those seem to be the ascendant ones (and arguably the worst).
It's a devious trick indeed. I hope more people will find the necessary balance and stop being controlled entirely by the outrage cycles. Maybe it gets easier because online discourse is so overrun by grifters these days, and people are getting tired of it.
Reading old books was helpful; the next step for me was working out answers to the question, "How would I tell my story to these books' writers and original audiences in a way they would understand?" Consistently rewording and escaping current-day therapyspeak has allowed me a stronger, brighter, more flexible understanding of my own life.
So heartwarming and down to earth advice on what one can do to stay grounded Luc, thanks for these excellent and practical and inexpensive suggestions! I agree with when I read from a big thick hardcover book I inherited from my mother chock full of various quotes of famous and anons authors and writers of people throughout time it is so very comforting and reassuring to discover that they were no different in their humanness than we are today so many centuries later!