from Verse One Hundred Seventy-ThreeSo it is that when people are pressed by difficulties, then they seek means of coping with them; it is because of their troubles that they take precautions. In each case they use their knowledge to get rid of what they consider harmful and take to what they consider advantageous.~ Wen-tzu: Understanding the Mysteries ~
When I was growing up my best friend, Greg, and I liked to build models. We went about it in different ways. Greg followed the instructions and painstakingly secured every little piece into its proper place. He then took the same care in painting his masterpiece. When finished, his little plastic model often looked exactly like the real thing...except it was way, way too small!! :-D
I have never been nimble with my hands. Precise work with my fingers almost always ends up with huge amounts of frustration and a few profanities laced in for good measure. Unlike Greg, I could never make heads nor tails out of the instructions and so I tended to cast them aside. Whenever I finished MY model projects, there were always a few pieces left over and my little car or plane or whatever it was looked a bit askew. Needless to say, I painted them like I built them and, even though we often built the same models, mine never looked as neat and tidy as his.
Had I been a tad bit more disciplined in my craft work -- like my buddy -- I wouldn't have built such flawed creations. The wheels would have worked as intended or the boat would have been able to stay afloat. In my own way, I sought to cast off what I deemed to be unimportant and it only dawned on me, once the project was finished, how important to the integrity of the model that the cast off pieces represented.
And so it is with our lives, in general. Too often, we create the framework of our own misery and troubles by casting aside the integral parts of life. What we may consider harmful or advantageous at one moment may be just the opposite in the next.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
I have never been nimble with my hands. Precise work with my fingers almost always ends up with huge amounts of frustration and a few profanities laced in for good measure. Unlike Greg, I could never make heads nor tails out of the instructions and so I tended to cast them aside. Whenever I finished MY model projects, there were always a few pieces left over and my little car or plane or whatever it was looked a bit askew. Needless to say, I painted them like I built them and, even though we often built the same models, mine never looked as neat and tidy as his.
Had I been a tad bit more disciplined in my craft work -- like my buddy -- I wouldn't have built such flawed creations. The wheels would have worked as intended or the boat would have been able to stay afloat. In my own way, I sought to cast off what I deemed to be unimportant and it only dawned on me, once the project was finished, how important to the integrity of the model that the cast off pieces represented.
And so it is with our lives, in general. Too often, we create the framework of our own misery and troubles by casting aside the integral parts of life. What we may consider harmful or advantageous at one moment may be just the opposite in the next.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
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