Guys-
It’s not always easy to live life. The biggest battles are usually between your ears. Learning how to be you and live within your own skin day to day is one of life’s biggest challenges. Learning how to do that and also be of service to your world, your community, your family and your friends is perhaps the goal of life.
I’ve not always found the above to be easy. It’s simple to say, more difficult to practice. I do my best today. Get some things right, get some things wrong. But keep going. I find one of the single best ways to accomplish the mental peace necessary for success is by taking a few minutes each day to say my daily prayers. I’ve listed them below. I’m not a religious person, but I’ve come to believe in something bigger than myself and that’s been vital for me.
I love you guys so much! -Dad
God, I offer myself to Thee – To build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness
to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always. -3rd Step Prayer, AA
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it’s in dying that we are born to eternal life
-Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Acceptance is the answer to ALL of my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation- some fact of my life- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept my life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.-Passage from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world. You are free to do so and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.” –Franz Kafka; from “The Wire”
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellent, therefore, is not a singular act, but a habit.” –Aristotle, I think
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