I Want To Thrive, Not Just Survive
Every day I come to new discoveries about life and living. They are new and old lessons. But what I’ve learned the most lately is to keep an open mind, ‘presencing’. Listen to God. It amazes me how often He speaks. Just now when I was doing the dishes I though about how I feel restless about my work. I thought I was doing all right. I had faith in my work, my paintings, my art, but then someone asked me what my tasks were at this moment and suddenly I felt blank and could hardly reply. A second before I had felt productive, in the way of being busy with the right things, but then I felt stupid and silly and it didn’t leave me until now.
But when I was doing the dishes and thinking of this and wondered what God thought of it, I found myself singing along “Been fighting things that I can’t see, like voices coming from the inside of me, like doing things I find hard to believe in, am I alive or am I dreaming?” And then it goes on to “I want to thrive, not just survive.” And to me that’s God speaking. I know that there are many things to say to that, but I believe that God speaks in these little, almost unremarkable ways. I find so much joy when He opens my eyes/ears to it!
This week I’ve been reading the Profundis by Oscar Wilde, from a real book this time and it’s so interesting and so inspiring. I wish everyone would read it. But even if they did, it probably wouldn’t speak to everyone as it does to me. I’ve been thinking about that lately, how you can not teach anyone anything unless they really want to know or are in the same mindset as you. I guess the only thing one can do to change someone’s mind is by asking the right questions. Though I wouldn’t have control over the outcome of these conversations.
But I do think it’s important to keep on questioning everything, to be searching all the time and one way to keep on doing that is asking questions to ones self and to another. To not fall asleep, to not fall into mindless habits.
I feel like life is one big improvisation. You can not prepare for anything. How often do I plan my day and it goes has I had imagined? Rarely. To keep on looking, to stay awake, to not get irritated when things go different. To take everything as it comes and see it to the fullest, being present, do something different, say something or be silent for a change, be aware. Though it’s not easy and I find myself lacking in a lot of these situations. Usually only thinking of myself and my own discomfort instead of focusing on the bigger picture. Though I now try to take all these failures and learn from them. Be better at that next similar question. Stay hopeful that one can grow and change and learn. And most of all have faith that God will do what needs to be done. To just be present with an open mind to hear what He says. That is all.
