Personal Growth

Thanks, IM. Thoughtful and inspirational... hardly invisible!

Thanks. If you lived and loved as consciously as I have...when you make mistakes...you learn...and you learn from other's mistakes as well.
Hehehe.

Invisibleman is a cool name. It is open for interpretation. It is quite stealthy.

My work with the blind was the most rewarding thing. It forever changed me. Amazing people. I was involved in the protection of them and found out i loved helping others. They taught me so much about life. Located in a very bad neighborhood. Ice cream man selling drugs. The Church yard a Shooting Gallery etc. If i were single i would still be doing it. Im not. Her wondering if i will come home at night and one night i allmost didnt. So with cracked ribs i told her im getting another job and did. This job was the most amazing thing. It was like being in Heaven and Hell at the same time.

Might it be possible to help get the facility located elsewhere? Surely the blind are just as subject to the conditions in the neighborhood, if not more so!

No. The Neighborhood was beautifull during the day. When the sun went down forget about it. I would love to work with the blind again and will some day . Not in the protection of but the teaching of. I know some people and can pull some strings but there is a waiting line. So time will tell.

It is so easy to build monuments to glorify the sacrifices of those who have given their lives for good and bad causes, especially if large numbers of lives have been sacrificed. I am sure someday we will have to find another spot on the Mall in Washington, D.C., to commemorate those dead and forever altered resulting from this "War on Terrorism."

However, there are those who venture into harm's way in struggles that occur comparatively quietly in neighborhoods and fields that are not war zones. They don't take the risks they do to be memorialized but because they see a need and try to address it. Perhaps we could do more to focus attention on this type of sacrifice... not that it must be a sacrifice... to demonstrate that one's contributions can be notable, even if not on a battlefield.

Then there are those who subtly and inobtrusively take actions and perform deeds that actually help prevent lives from being lost or tragically altered. How difficult it apparently is to honor these individuals' efforts!

So, given a choice, is it more appealing to risk life and limb for a cause or to risk not getting recognition?

I'm having a hard time relating your new question to the rest of the thread. I feel like I'm right on the verge of seeing the connection... and then I lose it. So I'd like to answer your original question, if that's okay, MaleBonding.

One way I have found personal growth has been in learning to accept change. Change is among the hardest things to which to adjust. We must all learn to bend, or we learn where we break. Those are the only two choices.

I have also grown a lot in book stores. Where I see a need for improvement it is not difficult to find reading materials on the subject. I think the surest sign of love is forgiveness. I found that I was harboring a lot of pain from acts which I find unforgivable, by people which I refuse to forgive. I recently learned that I can accept those people, and what they did without forgiving them, without poisoning myself. I'm trying to get to that place, and it is definitely creating growing pains. But I came this far reading books. That's just an example.

I think, like others have pointed out, that the most growth has come from giving to others of myself.

You did in your last sentence.

Well, I'm all for sacrifice, but usually not one to risk my life. I'd risk it for a child, but not a single solitary other. I don't need recognition for it either, though I do believe in the courtesy of a "thank you" where appropriate.

Who said you can't "grow" internally? I feel that by pushing myself in what I do, I've found things that I feel, make me better at what I do. It isn't as sezzy as being able to chat up ladies or whatever, but I have greater confidence in my own abilities.

You're right, but I think there's a delicate balance that has to be maintained through by both individuality and being able to relate to others. Not saying you don't think this, I really don't know, but I think relating to groups is important. One just can't let that take over and control every thought and desicion they make, as you said. Everything exists because of it's relationship to other things though, I personally think communication with others is exactly as important as communication with self

LemacST, you make an interesting point.

I don't quite get it, AE. To me, unforgiveness is a point of contraction in the being that prevents the flow of everything ... but most especially of love. It's a state in which you are actively punishing yourself. To achieve forgiveness is to achieve liberation from a life-withering contraction. (Of course, there's a whole continuum, some of our states of unforgiveness are more minor and hence less debilitating than others.)

Acceptance without forgiving is better, of course, than neither accepting nor forgiving. But I wonder how possible it really is. Because you would be accepting a state of contraction that, with the requisite momentary insight and decision, you might relinquish.

But I have a feeling that you will have a good answer to this. I've probably not quite understood you.

(And this is kind of a do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do post. Because I can't pretend that I don't have many points of unforgiveness in my heart. They are hard to identify sometimes, much less release.)

QFT.

When you refuse to forgive someone, and also refuse to accept them for who they are, you punnish yourself more than you punnish anyone else. They are free not to have anythhing to do with you, but you perpetuate your relationship with them by loathing them, reviling them, and revisiting your injuries more often than is healthy.

When you forgive someone superficially, becasue you feel it is the moral high road, or because you are satisfied simply to get along with them even though you harbor resentment, you are doing yourself a diservice, and you cannot have a healthy relationship with them, nor prevent similar relationships from cropping up with others in the future.

However, if you can learn to accept people, and understand that they hurt you because they wer just being themselves, you are emancipated. You can see clearly that you take only a certain portion of the blame for whatever happened between you, and no more blame than what is fair. They mostly acted because they are them, and not because you are you. During acceptance, however, it is critical to note your own part in the outcome. With acceptance, you can find a way to stop obsessing over what went wrong. With acceptance you can move on from an injury even if the other person cannot or will not earn forgiveness. They don;t have to be in your life at all. They could be a deceased relative, or an evil villain. It won't matter. You can let go, by accepting that they do what they do, and you can take steps not to repeat your own complicit errors.

Forgiveness given without being earned can only be superficial. There will always be that part of you that is aching, because it never got validated. Sometimes it gets to a point where you can ignore that pain, but actually healing it by accepting an unforgivable person is healthier, I think.

It was a difficult concept for me to grasp as well, but a book I read helped me heal a lot of traumas that were strangling me. There are people I cannot ever forgive. But now I am so much less angry about what they did to me, and I will eventually stop reliving the worst things that have ever happened to me, because I am getting closer every day to letting go. I look forward to not hating anyone.

For me keeping life balanced and everything in moderation is a start, but having a career you are happy with, doing some volunteer work for something you really believe in. Having real friends. The abililty to travel to see different things and circumstances. Reading about and looking at viewpoints that differ from your own. Yoga, going to the gym. Having a great meal with people of different faiths and backgrounds, drinking wine and sharing your ideas and experiences.