My dear daughter,
“Be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.” – Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata
As you get on with your life, facing your labours and aspirations, you will find that you are always looking ahead to what you plan to do or reviewing what you had done or not done in the past. These are not bad in themselves. However, the danger we fall into with this, is that we neglect to enjoy the present – the now – this moment in which we are alive.
Most people are guilty of this way of thinking and living their lives. That is, instead of living in the moment, we are fully engaged in the past and the future. One reason that has been proffered for this is that we have awareness of the passage of time. This awareness produces anxiety because we can look at the past and try to predict the future. This preoccupation with the passage of time – our past and the future – may hold us engrossed in much thought. Thoughts about yesterday, today and tomorrow. Thoughts that are all over the place. Thought is a process of talking to ourselves. We talk too much to ourselves.
“If we are talking all of the time, we never hear what anyone else has to say. In the same way, if we are talking to ourselves all the time, we are never listening; we have nothing to think about other than thoughts, and are never in relationship with reality”. – Alan Watts.
Calm down my child, take control of your thoughts, be thorough about what you are going over in your mind, don’t let your thoughts go all over the place. This way, you can be at peace with yourself and your soul.
Love you always.
Dad.
