Andrew is one of the foreign teachers at my school. His students say funny things.
"Andrew teacher, your breath smells like my Grandpa's." -Julian, 7yrs
* * *
Andrew: "If a teacher makes a big mistake, it is not a big problem."
June, gr.3: "YES it is...if the teacher throws dynamite."
"At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps
that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's
why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total
of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived." ~nicole krauss (the history of love)
"A person's a person, no matter how small." ~horton the elephant
"Renunciation of objects, without the renunciation of desires, is short-lived, however hard you may try." ~nishkulanand
you are where you are.
let's start with that. it's true, after all, and denying it, fighting against it, pretending otherwise amounts to nothing more than a waste of these precious few moments of life we're gifted with.
you are where you are.
and it is a lovely place to begin. even if it's painful, even if it's not where you saw yourself 10 years ago, or 10 months, or 10 days. it's lovely because it's what you have, and what you have is so much more than so many others are gifted with,,, more than you often give yourself credit for.
imagine yourself on a map. are you limited as to which direction you can go? certainly there are circumstances of terrain that may provide greater ease or challenge, but the vital truth is and will always remain that any direction is available to you.
even if it's a direction you've never gone before, even if it contains unknowable obstacles,,, the power of choice rests or rises with you.
you are where you are.
and you, as the traveler, now have the privilege of deciding where to go from here. just as, where you have been in no way dictates where you must go, it is equally true that your past cannot decide your future.
yes, it can be scary to leave the paths you have worn, over so many years of dusty repetition, but when the roads you know don't take you to where you know, in your heart, you must be,,, it is time to quit lamenting the fact and blaze off bravely in the direction of the undiscovered.
what a miracle that you have feet! what a miracle that they will take you in absolutely any direction that you tell them to go! you are blessed with a vehicle far more marvelous and sophisticated than anything the human mind has yet to or ever will conceive.
it is one thing to sit upon the sidelines of life and bemoan your fate, and it is another entirely to shake yourself free of mentally-cobwebbed ideas and start moving.
move!!!
move
until your amble becomes a walk, until your walk becomes a jog, until
your jog becomes a run, until your feet find their gravity-escaping
rhythm and you take flight.
are you facing a fire? it is when you are stuck - motionless - that flames burn the worst,,, remember when, as a child, you moved your finger through the candle flame fast enough, it had no power to touch you.
remember the joy of that, the triumph in it, my friends, and move.
move until the air before you becomes a cool wind on your face, until the scenery rushes past in a celebration of your speed.
move until you find yourself in the clearing you are looking for. i promise you, it exists on the other side of whatever lies between you and that place of rest.
when caught in the frustrating mazes of
life, we are often closer to freedom than we realize. a view from above
adds the clear perspective we are blind to when we think only on ground
levels.
when you cannot go left, and you are blocked from going right,,, when the way in front of you is too tangled, and you know you must leave what is behind,,,
go up, my friends, go up.
you will find there the far-view,,, drink in the picturesque scenery of hope that every weary traveller at some point needs.
you are where you are.
perhaps because you are learning things now that are seeds for blessings in days to come, for plantings you have not yet imagined.
you are where you are.
perhaps because you are accumulating experience that will someday be the common ground on which you meet the love of your life, your greatest friend, or your self.
you are where you are.
because the sometimes difficult, but ground-shaking truth is,,,
you are choosing to be.
we can't always control where the winds of this life blow us, how far they might veer us from the flight-paths we'd projected,,,
but until the moment our last spark of life passes from this vehicle of our body and moves into the next,,, it remains our choice to rise up from wherever we are, no matter the obstacles, no matter the challenges, no matter the odds, and to move, one precious step at a time,,,
footprint by footprint, handhold by handhold, until at last we find our home.
via jesh de rox
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