9-1-02, Sunday Journal
KNOW CONTENTMENT NOW
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
Montaigne tells about King Pyrrhus preparing to attack a country and his
counselor asked why.
Pyrrhus said, "So I can then attack Gaul and Spain."
The counselor asked, "And then?"
"I will subdue Africa, then bring the whole world under my
subjection."
"What then?"
"Well, then I will sit down and rest and find a great contentment."
The counselor said, "What hinder you from reaching your ultimate goal of
contentment right now? Just sitting down now, resting and finding contentment
and sparing yourself all the labor and stress and danger?"
Why is it we feel life's battles must all be fought and won before we can be
satisfied? This instant you can settle yourself into a state of calmness without
the whole world being under your control. Once we gain control, we must maintain
control and the maintaining is as stressful as the gaining.
Every day we try to seize control over our little world with its people and
issues is a day we miss in directing our own soul into deep inner peace. We will
not be productive in any good endeavor without peace. Control is not where the
power is. Its in peace.
YET, DO SOMETHING
One of my dearest friends retired and when I asked if he was doing a project he
had often talked of doing once he retired, he said "I have discovered the
pleasure of doing nothing."
I discovered he had been doing something. A little fun game. We are not made to
do nothing.
We are built for action. We have legs to get up and go. We have arms to reach
and touch things that interest us. We have a brain that cannot be turned off. It
can only be directed and the only way to direct it is to find things it likes to
think about.
Every brain needs a project, even if it's only finding new trails to walk, new
ways to relax, people to enjoy or whatever.
All we need to do to find happiness and fulfillment is to let our brain tell us
what it wants to do, and set the rest of our body to doing it.
It's not a matter of mind control. It's listening to our mind. Tuning into our
likes and loves and desires and dreams.
Don't be constantly talking to your brain, giving it orders, bossing it around.
It's your friend. Listen to it.
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