Each of us has a tremendous responsibility to manage the
world.
So get busy.
What, you can’t be bothered managing the world?
Well, if you don’t manage the world—the world you, and only
you, see through your eyes—then who will?
I mean it’s not like your world would exist without you, so
shouldn’t you be the one to make sure your world is nice and tidy.
What if company comes?
Okay, sure, we’ve all heard it said: “the world will go on
without us”.
Seasons will unfold, people will laugh, people will cry and Taylor
Swift will continue to win Grammy after Grammy...I mean, if Kanye says it’s
okay.
But will your
world, the one you and only you, visit every day?
That the way in which the world exits—the world through our perspective—is
singular to us by the ideas and attitudes we’ve cultivated and lived by since
we were old enough to walk and talk.
Through the experiences, good and bad, we’ve enjoyed and endured. Relationships,
travels, tastes, the chances we took and the chances we didn’t. Satisfaction, regret...joy and pleasure...sorrow
and grief.
All of it, coloring our days.
Sometimes, crushing and overwhelming.
Sometimes, too good to be true.
But most times, quiet, mundane, easy and ever ordinary.
Quiet as the first star appearing on a summer night is quiet.
Mundane as the flight of a butterfly is mundane.
Easy as a warm fire on a winter’s night is easy.
Ever ordinary as an infant smiling and grabbing your nose for
the first time is ever ordinary.
We manage it...all of it...our entire world in the way we let it
seep into our lives. The way we let the things we can’t control affect us. The
way we let the things we can control affect others. The way we let the things
that knock us, shake us and turn us upside down, keep us down...or brush them
aside and pull ourselves back up.
We can do that...as soon as we understand that...we can.
As soon as we allow that...we will.
As soon as we’ve done that...we’ve won.
It’s a big responsibility; we all have it...we all share it.
Manage our world and the big world will follow.
Simplistic?
Simplistic?
Sure.
It really is.
It’s just how I try to manage....
______________________________
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outstanding, brian. "the world though our perspective"....THAT'S IT!!!
ReplyDeletemy hiatus has been too long. i think you just gave me the good swift kick in the behind (like my grandfather used to with his work boots when we were late coming home from playing in the good 'ol neighborhood).
thank you, brian...
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.
It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Thanks for that! However, I bet most of the time you took a wide berth around Gramps. Perception and control of our personal worlds is a recurring theme for me. It’s actually the subtext of my book, which I'm trying to plant into the heads of the youguns....available below from Amazon.com (sorry, couldn’t resist). But all in all, I guess I am trying to leave something behind here, at least for the future digital archeologists to dig up. Happy to be of butt kicking assistance; now start writing....
DeleteWell! Managing my world eh? I've sent it a memo for starters. "To My World Department. Things are going to have to change. As I see it, not enough of you are pulling your weight in making my world a place to be proud. And apart from that Moloney cat there are not too many new ideas for me to consider in 'Ropey Mode' May I also remind My World of Albert Einsteins: We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." and so on...... By the way, whose turn to do the garden this week? It seems that I have been doing it for a lifetime.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling your Ropey world is doing just fine...
Delete