August 1, 2009
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Thought For The Week 15 – What’s your life worth? Part 3
Thought For The Week 15
What’s your life worth? Part 32. Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else. You made one. I made one. We all make them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. But our eyes are different. What you see ain’t what I see.
“All the atoms in between this side of the string and that side of the string, are all steps; they’re all levels that you need to complete to get to the goal you have set…your heart’s desire.”
My son grimaced at me. “I hate it when you make a point,” he said.
“Let’s say,” I continued, smiling, “that this first atom represents the levels you’d have to go through to complete elementary school, and all the learning you needed from the cradle to that point. This next atom,” I said, as if I could actually see it, “represents all the challenges, new information, emotional and physical changes you will go through to complete middle school. Each one is a step or level to complete.”
“Let’s look at this like a cube,” I told him. “If you had a graft, it has millions of little squares going up and down and then side to side. If you took a square graft like that, and put it side by side, it’d take four sides and two for the top and bottom to make a cube, right?”
“Yeeeaaah,” He said slowly.
“Ok, and then to really make is a 3 dimensional cube, those lines in the grafts would have to be running up and down and across all sides of those squares like toothpicks. So there’d be a bunch of little cubes on the inside of the cube, right?”
“Riiiight,” He said slowly again, trying to assess where I was going with this.
3. “So why am I here?” He said. “I mean, your story, the fire, it all happened before I was born.”
“Things that happen before you are born still affect you,” she said. “And people who come before your time affect you as well. We move through places every day that would never have been if not for those who came before us. Our work places, where we spend so much time-we often think they began with our arrival. That’s not true.”“Now,” I said, “Each cube represents a level and a dimension. When you pass from one of these mini cubes to another within the cube, you are not only changing levels of achievement, but remember that each cube touches and intersects with another cube. There are levels up, down, sideways and across. Each represent a different atom or level on a string within the cube that is your environment, and ultimately yet another string.
If you seem to be on one level and become dissatisfied with the level you are on, because you think you aren’t moving fast enough to another level you think is above where you are; just remember that that cube can be flipped and you’d be in the same place. The perspective on where that place is will appear different just because of new eyes. Nevertheless, you still have to reach that one cube/atom/string that represents the place your heart desires.”
“If you try to move from this end of the string or cube,” I motioned to the left hand, “to this end of the string or cube,” I motioned again with my right hand, “without going through all the atoms/mini cubes in between, it will not stand. You cannot skip steps. You can’t jump atoms or avoid cubes. What’s meant for you is meant for you and the lessons in between are necessary for you to learn to reach your appointed end goal.
“If you were to jump from where you are now, directly to your end goal of electrical engineering, you’d be rejected at that level because you did not gain the knowledge you needed from all the levels in between. Your knowledge level won’t support your end goal, and you would lose your dream. You follow me?”
My son nodded affirmatively. “But I still hate it when you make a point,” he said again. I laughed.
4. Learn this from me. Holding anger is poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
At this point in the book, the main character encountered his father, long since deceased, and learned some things about why his father did certain things. He learned some things about his father’s past that he never knew. Then his eyes were opened and his perspective changed.
It made me think back about people that have passed through my life. I had come to the conclusion that everyone is temporary. I concluded that I cannot count on having anyone as a permanent fixture in my life because they will always disappoint or do something that harms me at some point in time, and at that point, will exit my life.
5. Love is still love. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end. Love doesn’t.
Some of the people I have allowed to exit my life unhindered, I still care about. I thought about the pain they caused me. I thought about the possibility of reconnecting because most of them to my knowledge, I had already forgiven. But I realized that they feel like strangers to me. They might greet me like everything was the same, but I’d still have a sense of unease. I don’t quite know how to overcome that.
With some of them, it’s been too long. What do I have in common with them anymore? How can trust be established? With some, the predominant memory is the one when they caused the harm that caused the separation in the first place. I’m not mad anymore or even hurt anymore. But that is the last memory, and the freshest. In not having these individuals in my life for whatever time period they’ve been out of it, I haven’t invested much thought time on them. I’ve been living my life. Therefore, some of the memories have died. All I can do is love the positive things I used to know about them. Since I don’t know if they are still that same person, or if they have changed as I have undoubtedly changed since knowing them.
Supposed to be there. Supposed to be here. Entries and exits. Gains and losses. All supposed to be. The issue is not what comes and goes in my life; in anyone’s life. The issue is how we respond to it. We respond according to what we see. What we see ultimately affects our perception and alters what we believe. What we believe is what guides our decision making and directs the path of our life.
I could never not be where I’m supposed to be. The only thing I could do that would cause me to think I’m not accomplished in my life is the false perception that my life is of no consequence or effect upon anyone else’s. And the thing is, whether we know it or not, we affect millions of people every day, every minute, every hour of our lives. We cross paths and intersect lives, and someone is helped by our presence. We are all of great value; to God and to life.
