Saturday, March 24, 2007

Do You Act or React?

I walked with my friend, a Quaker, to the newsstand the other night, and he bought a paper, thanking the newsier politely. The newsier didn't even acknowledge it. " A sullen fellow, isn't he" I asked. "Oh, he's that way every night", shrugged my friend, "Then why do you continue to be so polite to him?" I asked. "Why not?" inquired my friend? "Why should I let him decide how I'm going to act?" As I thought about this incident later, it occurred to me that the important word was "act". My friend acts towards, people; most of us react toward them. He has a sense of inner balance which is lacking in most of us - he knows who he is, what he stands for, how he should behave. He refused to return incivility, because then he would no longer be in command of his own conduct. When we are enjoined to the Bible to return good for evil, we look upon this as a moral injunction - which it is. But it is also a psychological prescription for our emotional health. Nobody is unhappier than the perpetual reactor. His center of emotional gravity is not rooted within himself, where it belongs, but in the world outside him. His spiritual temperature is always being raised or lowered by the social climate around him, and he is a mere creature at the mercy of these elements. Praises give him a feeling of euphoria, which is false, because it does not last and it does not come from self-approval. Criticism depresses him more than it should, because it confirms his own secretly shaky opinion of himself. Snubs hurt him, and the merest suspicion of unpopularity in any quarter rouses him to bitterness. A serenity of spirit cannot be achieved until we become the masters of our own actions and attitudes.To let another determine whether we shall be rude or gracious, elated or depressed is to relinquish control over our own personalities, which is ultimately all we possess. The only possession is self-possession. author unknown

Anyway

* People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered: Forgive them anyway.

* If your are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Be kind anyway.

* If you are successful; you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

* What you spend years building; someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.

* If you are honest and frank people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

* If you find serenity and happiness; they may be jeolous; Be happy anyway.

* The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.

by Mother Teresa

Seek His Face

Seek His Face