Investments and relationships

In relationships, as in nature and business, 
one cannot produce fruit without first planning, planting, nurturing, and waiting.  If one is lucky, the fruit is proportionate to the effort.  
One can't draw interest without earning it: making a deposit and waiting - and even then the interest is dependent on the one entrusted with the deposit and proportionate to the amount deposited.
One can't get a life-sustaining return without first choosing, investing, and waiting - and the return depends on the wisdom of one's choice, the amount invested, the level of commitment to the investment - and grace.

Duty or opportunity

Does my universe - Life - ask a lot of me?
Or does it simply give me abilities, opportunities to use those abilities, and the capacity to form opinions about the proper stewardship of those abilities and opportunities and I mistake my own opinions - my self-imposed duties - for external demands? 

Life

Life: The acceptance of challenge, travail, pain, unfairness, disappointment, frustration and the need to forgive as the price of health, growth, vitality, fulfillment, peace, joy and forgiveness.

Efficiency vs. laziness

There is a difference between efficiency and laziness.  Sometimes it is deceptively small.  But, fundamentally, it is always big.

Examining today's choices

Like every other cell in the body of humanity, I'm going to die someday.  
Am I willing to examine how I use the gift of each day, mindful that it might be my only opportunity to make my last impression?
If so, is the balance between contribution, growth, fun, exercise and rest a healthful one?
If not, what am I afraid of?

About sharing

What is the purpose of sharing something?  

Is my sharing to control others, however benignly: to educate, advocate, warn - or show off?  To introduce a concept or event and explain it, or my perspective on it?  To point out a window, so to speak, and describe all that I think my listener or reader needs to know about what can be seen from it?  

Or is my sharing to convey esteem for the listener or reader, build our relationship, and learn?  To point out the window, briefly share why I think something I perceive from it is worth sharing - something revealing, beautiful or important - and invite the other to look through the window and draw her or his own conclusions and, perhaps, to grace me with her or his perspective?

November 16, 2014

When I seek to grow, or to increase my contribution, or when I am troubled, 
and I ask myself a question, 
where does the answer come from?