I was reading The Smirking Chimp yesterday and ran across a brief account of a family who attended an event with the Dalai Lama (the author's 2 year old daughter referred to him as the Dalai Mama). Near the end of this brief commentary, the author wrote:
I realized, however, that most of us live our lives between these two poles. We're not altogether as loving as we could be, but we're concurrently not as mean-spirited or hateful as we could be either. Most of us certainly are more selfish than we might like to think, but most of us can also be very selfless, at times.
Our lives reside in the gray area, not really one or the other -- or a bit of both. We often take the middle path without even realizing it.
In many ways, the human organism unconsciously strives for the middle. Where we tend to land ourselves in hot water is when -- via our many desires -- we tilt to one extreme or the other. In time though, we usually wind up back in the middle again, somewhere between good and bad, high or low, love and hate.
And as we drove out of the parking structure after this extraordinary and inspiring experience, I spotted a big poster near the exit that read, "Next Event -- Sarah Palin". And we were all immediately struck by the contrast in messages between the speaker we had just heard and the speaker to come. On this singular afternoon, the "Dalai Mama" had fired us all up with his universal message of peace, love and hope -- and yet there, surrounded by the very same air that the Dalai Lama had just breathed, Sarah Palin would soon be trying to fire up people with her mean-spirited messages of violence and hate...Quite a difference in messages, wouldn't you say?
I realized, however, that most of us live our lives between these two poles. We're not altogether as loving as we could be, but we're concurrently not as mean-spirited or hateful as we could be either. Most of us certainly are more selfish than we might like to think, but most of us can also be very selfless, at times.
Our lives reside in the gray area, not really one or the other -- or a bit of both. We often take the middle path without even realizing it.
In many ways, the human organism unconsciously strives for the middle. Where we tend to land ourselves in hot water is when -- via our many desires -- we tilt to one extreme or the other. In time though, we usually wind up back in the middle again, somewhere between good and bad, high or low, love and hate.
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