The Power Of Words

One of our mightiest possessions is the word. Words have the power to build, to store and create, as well as tear down and destroy. We think with words, we organize our world with words. We communicate with words, we inform with words, we build relationships with words. Our worlds are very much limited by the words we use. Sometimes we become so caught up with words that we forget that they are just symbols for things, and we begin to see them as a substitute for the things they are meant to represent.
in reference to: The Greatest Gift (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Power Of Words

One of our mightiest possessions is the word. Words have the power to build, to store and create, as well as tear down and destroy. We think with words, we organize our world with words. We communicate with words, we inform with words, we build relationships with words. Our worlds are very much limited by the words we use. Sometimes we become so caught up with words that we forget that they are just symbols for things, and we begin to see them as a substitute for the things they are meant to represent.

It's important to remind ourselves that words are just phonetic symbols put side by side. By themselves they're nothing. Most of the words we know were learned before we were six or seven years old, to early to fully analyze or understand them. These words were defined for us and we accepted them as presented. For example, if the significant people in our lives felt strong hate toward a particular person or thing, the words they taught us concerning these things became part of our attitude as well. The words soon represented a constellation of thoughts and feelings surrounding those things. Soon we found that were thinking and responding negatively to them. Of course, this couldn't be helped. Nevertheless, it was in this way that we learned what to hate or fear or avoid.

Just as we acquired the words for goodness, hope, optimism, joy and love, we ;earned also to attach negative symbols and discovered early the power of directing them we pleased. We found that words could hurt. As a child, I can remember the standard retort for words bullies: Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me! Occasionally this brought a rock or a stick my way, but it was more difficult not to feel the sting of such words as skinny freak, dumb retard. I wonder how many of us still feel the pain of labels that devastated us long ago.

Perhaps one of the great human tragedies is that few of us even stop to ask whether the words we think with and which cause us to fee so strongly are ours or simply echoes which continue to reverberate in our minds. If we stopped to redefine these words, we might discover that many of them are no longer relevant to the present. Words we learned as children may have prevented us from truly experiencing and understanding other persons or things as they really are. For many of us these words continue to serve in their capacity to reject, exclude and judge.

The great humanitarian-scientist, Buckminster Fuller, said that one of the most significant events of his life was when he stopped everything and wrote his own dictionary. He redefined words according to his experience, as what they represented in his reality, not that of others. This effect forced him to re-examined his values and reassess his attitudes. I gave him a far deeper appreciation of the power of words for the remainder of his life.

As adults we know that certain behavior is discarded early in life because it is childish and inappropriate. As wise adults we learn that certain words and labels should be discarded as well because they are hurtful or destructive, and if that means passing the opportunity to tell the latest joke, then we are all the more fortunate for that insight.

There can be no word large enough to encompass the wonder of a human being. To judge others by a single label is to miss them entirely. As a child I may have been a Latin immigrant, or skinny, or a number of things, but I was much more than each one of them. Thanks goodness for those special individuals who learned to look beyond the labels and to know me as a whole person. It's not surprising that they turned out to be the people most worth knowing.

Words so often desensitize us. They can paralyze our senses as well as our better instincts. Words are powerful things which too often take casually. They were created to help us give organization to chaos. But, unless we are careful, they become traps which lead us to apathy, hate and loneliness. we mustn't allow words to control us. They are our tools to enlarge, not narrow, our lives.

Love for Being With Self

I'd like to believe that we are by nature social creatures. Anyone who has ever experienced loneliness - and among us who hasn't - will agree with that. We need each other. But as much as we need to be with each other, we also need to be alone from time to time.

in reference to: The Greatest Gift (view on Google Sidewiki)

Love for Being with Self

I'd like to believe that we are by nature social creatures. Anyone who has ever experienced loneliness - and among us hasn't - will agree with that. We need each other. But as much as we need to be with each other, we also need to be alone from time to time. The thought is expressed beautifully by Paul Tillich. In his book, Courage To Be, he writes, "Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone."

One of the absolute essentials of my life is to have time to myself. Time to collect scattered thoughts, time for quiet contemplation, time to think things through, or time to just go along at my own pace. To me, it's  a very reasonable demand of the body and the mind that I disengage from everything and everyone occasionally. It's amazing how often I am criticized for this trait. I, say my critics, who love people so much, have no right to be a private person.

This requirement is not new for me. I discovered it early. In my childhood, in my birth country, there were the day-long excursions up into the mountains, near town, the hours of exploring whatever came into a view or grasp, completely absorbed in my environment. There were very special trees that had the most accommodating branches for climbing and for building my own little fortress of solitude, way up high. When I really needed to be alone, that was my place.

I still like to break away on my own and wander to places that invite exploration. Sad to say, I'm less inclined to climb trees these days, but the stars seem just as close and glorious from the backyard of our house, and it's a great deal less strenuous.

I manage to get away by myself few days every now and then. It's a need that reasserts itself at appropriate intervals of my life. I divorce myself from newspapers, TV, telephone, Blackberry, even though it's not always easy to leave these things behind. for me, doing this has its rewards.

First of all, there is the absolute splendor of no static from the outside. Getting far enough away from the sounds of the city means an opportunity to listen to my own heart and mind. I sometimes forget their sound in the constant roar of daily life. Having experienced this for a week or so, the renewing effect it has on my mind and body is unmistakable. Being cut off from a week's worth of news, and the calamities and carnage that are its mainstays, is a very special kind of therapy.

It's most enlightening to discover that, like a never ending soap opera, nothing is really missed by failing occasionally to keep current. In fact, separating oneself from the woes of the world can do wonders for one's outlook and general mood. One returns refreshed and optimistic!

It's so easy to become wrapped up in a routine of people an places that we neglect the all-important time of separation. Even when we find ourselves alone we are sometimes prone to fill the empty space with the chatter of a television set, or the Internet or plugged in MP3 player, almost as if we were afraid of the quiet.

We forget that there is an inner music that's nice to listen to sometimes. Thomas Edison said of his deafness that it was an asset because from it he learned to listen from within. All of us, to some degree, suffer from a different kind of deafness that is caused by ignoring or closing off those inner channels. Solitude is an excellent way of improving our hearing.

Passion for Loving

Perhaps it's time to look again at the ways and power of love.

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Passion for Loving

Perhaps it's time to look again at the ways and power of love. For many, just the thought that love is a real possibility gives hope to what could otherwise be an empty life. What harm can come from mutual respect, gentleness, goodness, trust and peaceful coexistence? Think about it. Only love has the power to unite without taking away another's dignity, another's self. Only love holds no jealous possession over people and nations. Only love is capable of putting humanity before ideology or race. Only love can supply the endless energies required to overcome hunger and despair.

"Love one another". These words were spoken more than two thousand years ago. Powerful though this command is, many of us have succeeded in ignoring it for these many years. We all give lip service to it but few of us expect anyone to really practice it. We leave that to madmen and saints.

In fact, we have become suspicious of lovers and either dismiss them as naive and irrelevant, or we see them as phonies. We are certain that no one could really care about anyone else without having some ulterior motive. The qualities of love such as tenderness, commitment, concern, generosity, and trust are relegated to the realm of platitudes and are ignored.

Today the phrase "lone one another" takes on a more urgent tone. It seems to me that we must love one another or die. Modern society shrugs off still another plea for love. It is amused by the suggestion that the world could be cemented together, not by the threat of holocaust or an arm race, but through a deep respect for life. No one will deny that we have reached a critical point in our history. In fact, there are growing numbers of fatalists who believe we have reached a point of no return. One thing is painfully obvious. Conventional methods to bring peace and understanding to our world have failed.

The more we look about us, the more we find hate, violence, prejudice and disregard for human life, more than one hundred million people were killed just alone in the 20th century alone, this doesn't include the people who died in natural disasters. We listen to newscasters and read columnists who deal out statistics about war dead, starvation, children being abused and sacrificed, disregard for human dignity and human rights. And all with about as much feeling as report of the day's football scores. We have become conditioned to a whole spectrum of wasted human potential. still, we continue to ignore love as possible alternative.

A friend of mine was telling me a story that happened during one of his trip to the old Soviet Union, he met a man in Moscow that said to him,"Why do you want to kill us?" he tried to make him understand that he wanted to kill no one, that he celebrated life, not death. Somewhere buried in our respective ideologies were two people trying to relate their very real and very human concerns-not only for the world, but for each other as individuals. Through the magic of caring communication, they accomplished a victory of sorts- they both forgot about all the things that separated them and were soon lost in one another. At that instant all contradictions and symbols were refuted. They both choose life.

I am sure that many would respond to this as naive and unrealistic; that love is barely strong enough to maintain most close family relationships and beyond that, the heart is strained to its limits. So it is ridiculous for anyone to count on the power of love for a solution to international problems. I've often been told that in my zeal to love everyone I risk ending up loving no one. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Universal love is not only possible, it is the most complete love of which we are capable as human beings.

But love can only work when we give up the antiquated mindsets which continue to paralyze us. We need to challenge the sophisticates who view it as romantic nonsense, idealistic bosh, unscientific and anti-intellectual. We need to accept love in our live as the most universal force for unification and good, accessible to all who really want it.

Only then we will discover that love, fully realized, has the power to lay aside the petty things which separate us and reveal the fact that our enemy  has a face and a heart. It is at this point that all things again become possible.

Discouragement=Perseverance

I don't imagine there is anyone fully alive who has not felt discouraged. The word discourage is defined as to deprive of courage, hope or confidence. Phrases such as, "it's not worth it," I can't", "I give up," I've failed," are standard. None of us is a complete stranger to feelings of hopelessness. It is ussually because we feel disappointed or trapped or have lost our sense of direction and hope for the future.

Discouragement is a very human attribute. We need not censure ourselves for feeling it. But it is important to know that no matter what the circunstances that have brought us to this point, they are not insurmountable. The world is full of possibilities, there is hope. Even the most successful and happiest people can tell you about having spent time questioning themselves, their values and their abilities. But they have never lost the capacity to hope.

There is a man whom we all know. His history goes as follows: twice he failed in business. He run for the state legislature and for congress twice and failed. He was defeated twice in Senate races. He worked hard to become Vice President of the United States with no success. The woman he loved died when she was very young. Eventually he suffered a nervous breakdown. Through all of this he has the self-knowledge and strength to overcome adversity, continue with life and become president. His name, of course, is Abraham Lincoln.

We are inspired by such a message. Bur we are not all Lincolns. Still, there is much to be learned by his example and the examples of other survivors. Because something goes wrong does not mean that it's the end of the world. In fact, it may be the challenge we need to awaken us to our strengths. The real dilema is feeling that there is no way to turn, no place to go, no one to help us. What is important to remember is that thare are many solutions to every problem. we are not perfect and may make mistakes but all things come to an end. Armed with this knowledge we are half way to a solution.

There were many times in my life that could have been devastating for me and my entire family. Times when i lost my job, when there was no money even for bare necessities, when things truly looked hopeless. In soite of, or perhaps especialy because of, those times, never allowed myself  and my family to lose our sense of humor, sense of self, or the assurance that we'd find a way. Somehow we always did.

I was fortunate to have learned this early in life. I know after experiencing discouragement, the first thing I try to do is keep in mind that nothing last forever, that only I can decide what I can do to make things batter. With this  hope and faith in the future I'm off and running, again seeking new solutions.

I believe that the truly healthy person is the one who has the greatest number of alternatives for any behavior. We are limited only by our willingness to discover those alternatives. Let's say that we find ourselves in tears. There is nothing wrong with tears. They often sharpen our ability to see. We then need to ask ourselves is crying forever is what we want to do. If not, we must consider what else we can possibly do to help ourselves and solve our problem.

We can consider possible alternatives. It may be helpful to find what others have done in similar situations. with a list of alternatives in hand, we will feel less trapped and more in a position to decide what is best for us.

Finaly comes the greatest step: We must do something. In action comes true knowledge and a wonderful sense of freedom. We are never really trapped. Discouragement at times seems inescapable. But, to remain in this state is a waste of time, energy and life. We can learn to put discouragement aside. When we do, we can get on with life.