Persistence, Patience
To keep at it is at the same time divine medicine and insane medicine.
It depends on what is it that you keep at.
Does what you keep at bring peace or stress into your life?
Just notice.
Then stick with what brings you peace.
And be kind to yourself. Persistence yields its fruits in its own time, not your own time.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Pomegranates! I love ‘em. I grew up in Southern California and we had a pomegranate tree. I looked forward every fall to eating them. We would pull them off the tree, break them open, and just eat them outside. I didn’t fret during the part of the year they weren’t growing or ripe. I love the idea of fruit yielding itself in its own time.
I was in the library one day years ago. Sometimes I read a lot and sometimes I don’t. A patron checking her books out was boasting how she reads a lot and finishes every book she starts whether she likes the book or not. (I believe she was referring to novels.)
It was a simple statement, but it had a profound effect. I wondered why anyone would bother to read a book “for fun” that was boring them. I felt that the pride in doing that was more important than the enjoyment of reading for this woman. I felt that my sense of enjoyment of life is much more important that sticking with something designed to entertain me when it does not.
This post reminded me of this. How many things do we stick with that are not really enhancing our lives or benefitting us or others. How “dutiful” are we just to serve the sense of duty but not intelligence? I can easily see when others are “wasting their time” by “doing what’s right” but I don’t always see it so easily in myself.
Oh, how The Work can help here, especially in the turn around. How much can we learn and grow and move forward when we realize to question even the simplest thoughts we may hold? What do we persist at just for the sake of persistance alone? Where are we lacking in our lives in aligning with intelligence and grace? How often “auto-mode” prevails for me, but less and less.
I love how life is showing me the way, even in all my stubborn resistance. Thank you for this post!