Your confidence and your sense of mastery depend a great deal on how you react to threats made by others.
A threat leads to nothing if it is not accepted. In fighting the good fight, you should not forget that. Just as you should never forget that both attacking and fleeing are part of the fight. What isn't a part of the fight is becoming paralyzed by fear.
- Petrus, The Pilgrimage
by Paulo Coelho
Perhaps by now you know how gradual I read the current book under my perusal. Like what I have said, I lack the luxury of time no matter how much I wish I could move on to the next book in my reading list. But I find this pace more advantageous. I mean, I have all the time (Now that may sound ironic!) to contemplate after every chapter how I could relate it to my personal experiences. And I am one hell of a lucky person because my every fall has some Coelho line or two that would retrieve my dampened spirit back to its struggle and back to my reality.
And a while back, inside the bus on my way to work (as usual), I have come across with the above lines. And so I went on with my contemplation as I integrate it with the lines I have posted last Saturday.
I admitted I was envious in some ways to what my friends have achieved. Well, that is how I interpreted my feelings. But my introspection told me I was not necessarily envious with their achievement, because for a fact, I have my little own, too, but I was more focused on the earthly wealth those achievements suggest.
My envy is instigated by other people. But it all boils down to the fact that this envy is a threat to my confidence and sense of mastery to conquer my dreams.
Yes, I too felt fear. Fear of not being able to conquer my devil. Fear of not achieving the expectations I have set for myself, not just the dreams I have fantasized in my mind which I vocally expressed but also the plans I have weaved for my kids and my family. Fear of not being able to be who I was purposely born for. And fear of many other unknown faces of my existence, my devils.
And these fears made me so insecure of my ability to achieve and even doubt my potential to be. But thanks to Petrus who told Paulo not to be paralyzed by his fear. I too would take his word that I should not be paralyzed by these fears. Even if Petrus might laugh at me if he would come across this blog (Umasa ba?) and he would repeat to me the same lines he told Paulo with the presence of the nun. To those who have read The Pilgrimage, I know that you know too well what I am referring to, but to those who haven't, let me just quote Petrus' lines (even this may fail to encapsulate the whole scenario):
"…When you sensed the presence of something positive, your imagination concluded that someone had arrived to help you. And this, your faith, saved you. Even though it was based on an assumption that was absolutely false."
I seem to be that. I assume, as Petrus and others may perceive that the lines I read from The Pilgrimage are directly and intentionally for me because of my experiences at the moment. I just do hope, my faith in Petrus' lines would redeem me like Paulo from the calls of evil.
Ah! Life space. I interpret the things around me as some conspiracy designed by the cosmic powers that travails my hemisphere. Argh! Poetic? Nah! I'm just playing with words… again.
Like I have said, blogging is cathartic for me. This is my avenue for expression. At the same time my way of negating the ill feelings I start to sense building within me. Actually too, I have sought the help of an expert about my feelings of envy. I was a bit pacified because she said that these feelings arise as part of human nature. It is not wrong. It only becomes wicked when my envy eats up my sanity and I devise devilish schemes to kill my source of envy not by knives though but by the power of my words. In Filipino slang, chismis or paninirang-puri (fabrication of issues to dehumanize others); which I am not capable of.
And let me go back to blogging. Aside from its cathartic effect on me, it also gives me a sense of fulfillment because I am able to share a part of who I am to people I actually do not know and inspire them (as they claim) in more ways than one. And just last week, I forgot to mention may be because my envy then was guzzling me up, Nice (a reader and blog visitor) told me that my entry "I am a Certified Bookworm" was posted by Paulo Coelho himself in his blogsite http://paulocoelhoblog.com and she too appreciated the booklist I presented along with another blog visitor.
Imagine how euphoric I was! The renowned Bestselling Author of The Alchemist among all others actually visited my site and skim read a few of my entries (I presume because the entry he posted was not the day's recent post and to the bloggers, you know what that means) and chose to post in his site a simple prose written by an aspiring writer like me. And so after checking my entry on Coelho's site (News section, now in the Archives), I got to have that sense of achievement. My enthusiasm in writing was ablazed even more.
Yeah! This is what I am driving at. The fight I am fighting is not seeking achievement with material compensation. My fight is to experience the love that consumes. Agape.
Now it has become clearer to me as I write this blog and integrate my recent analysis to previous stored introspections in my memory bank, that my devil is not a dog with many faces but money and the power and prestige it promises. If you may recall with me, the reason why my American dream was born was because of my need to help those who have helped us during Mama's suffering. My purpose was to finance my dream to build a school for children with special needs who are growing in number in our locality but has no facilities to provide them with the quality intervention they deserve. My reason too was to get myself back to school (with my kids of course going to the best schools) and finish a degree in Clinical Psychology and be an author of books in Psychology and stuff that could give life more meaning for people.
Rationalizing?
I may be. Yes I am. But it is only through seeking your own reality and questioning your own intentions that you can give more meaning, deeper that is, to your own existence.
So be it…
A threat leads to nothing if it is not accepted. In fighting the good fight, you should not forget that. Just as you should never forget that both attacking and fleeing are part of the fight. What isn't a part of the fight is becoming paralyzed by fear.
- Petrus, The Pilgrimage
by Paulo Coelho
Perhaps by now you know how gradual I read the current book under my perusal. Like what I have said, I lack the luxury of time no matter how much I wish I could move on to the next book in my reading list. But I find this pace more advantageous. I mean, I have all the time (Now that may sound ironic!) to contemplate after every chapter how I could relate it to my personal experiences. And I am one hell of a lucky person because my every fall has some Coelho line or two that would retrieve my dampened spirit back to its struggle and back to my reality.
And a while back, inside the bus on my way to work (as usual), I have come across with the above lines. And so I went on with my contemplation as I integrate it with the lines I have posted last Saturday.
I admitted I was envious in some ways to what my friends have achieved. Well, that is how I interpreted my feelings. But my introspection told me I was not necessarily envious with their achievement, because for a fact, I have my little own, too, but I was more focused on the earthly wealth those achievements suggest.
My envy is instigated by other people. But it all boils down to the fact that this envy is a threat to my confidence and sense of mastery to conquer my dreams.
Yes, I too felt fear. Fear of not being able to conquer my devil. Fear of not achieving the expectations I have set for myself, not just the dreams I have fantasized in my mind which I vocally expressed but also the plans I have weaved for my kids and my family. Fear of not being able to be who I was purposely born for. And fear of many other unknown faces of my existence, my devils.
And these fears made me so insecure of my ability to achieve and even doubt my potential to be. But thanks to Petrus who told Paulo not to be paralyzed by his fear. I too would take his word that I should not be paralyzed by these fears. Even if Petrus might laugh at me if he would come across this blog (Umasa ba?) and he would repeat to me the same lines he told Paulo with the presence of the nun. To those who have read The Pilgrimage, I know that you know too well what I am referring to, but to those who haven't, let me just quote Petrus' lines (even this may fail to encapsulate the whole scenario):
"…When you sensed the presence of something positive, your imagination concluded that someone had arrived to help you. And this, your faith, saved you. Even though it was based on an assumption that was absolutely false."
I seem to be that. I assume, as Petrus and others may perceive that the lines I read from The Pilgrimage are directly and intentionally for me because of my experiences at the moment. I just do hope, my faith in Petrus' lines would redeem me like Paulo from the calls of evil.
Ah! Life space. I interpret the things around me as some conspiracy designed by the cosmic powers that travails my hemisphere. Argh! Poetic? Nah! I'm just playing with words… again.
Like I have said, blogging is cathartic for me. This is my avenue for expression. At the same time my way of negating the ill feelings I start to sense building within me. Actually too, I have sought the help of an expert about my feelings of envy. I was a bit pacified because she said that these feelings arise as part of human nature. It is not wrong. It only becomes wicked when my envy eats up my sanity and I devise devilish schemes to kill my source of envy not by knives though but by the power of my words. In Filipino slang, chismis or paninirang-puri (fabrication of issues to dehumanize others); which I am not capable of.
And let me go back to blogging. Aside from its cathartic effect on me, it also gives me a sense of fulfillment because I am able to share a part of who I am to people I actually do not know and inspire them (as they claim) in more ways than one. And just last week, I forgot to mention may be because my envy then was guzzling me up, Nice (a reader and blog visitor) told me that my entry "I am a Certified Bookworm" was posted by Paulo Coelho himself in his blogsite http://paulocoelhoblog.com and she too appreciated the booklist I presented along with another blog visitor.
Imagine how euphoric I was! The renowned Bestselling Author of The Alchemist among all others actually visited my site and skim read a few of my entries (I presume because the entry he posted was not the day's recent post and to the bloggers, you know what that means) and chose to post in his site a simple prose written by an aspiring writer like me. And so after checking my entry on Coelho's site (News section, now in the Archives), I got to have that sense of achievement. My enthusiasm in writing was ablazed even more.
Yeah! This is what I am driving at. The fight I am fighting is not seeking achievement with material compensation. My fight is to experience the love that consumes. Agape.
Now it has become clearer to me as I write this blog and integrate my recent analysis to previous stored introspections in my memory bank, that my devil is not a dog with many faces but money and the power and prestige it promises. If you may recall with me, the reason why my American dream was born was because of my need to help those who have helped us during Mama's suffering. My purpose was to finance my dream to build a school for children with special needs who are growing in number in our locality but has no facilities to provide them with the quality intervention they deserve. My reason too was to get myself back to school (with my kids of course going to the best schools) and finish a degree in Clinical Psychology and be an author of books in Psychology and stuff that could give life more meaning for people.
Rationalizing?
I may be. Yes I am. But it is only through seeking your own reality and questioning your own intentions that you can give more meaning, deeper that is, to your own existence.
So be it…
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