Problems and perspective
- At September 07, 2012
- By Nathan
- In Career & Life Planning
0
Consider the flowers
Try to identify which problems require your focused attention and which ones do not.
It doesn’t do much good, for example, to exert a large amount of personal energy on overwhelming global concerns. At the moment, there is talk of war between Israel and Iran and maybe a number of other nations. Not good. But what can you do about it? Not much.
This isn’t to suggest that praying is insignificant. But this is the issue: Where do you want to invest most of your limited time and energy? Stressing about a war that may or may not happen? I didn’t think so.
Anxiety is like a sponge: It soaks up everything around it. Turn your attention towards huge problems. Meditate on everything that is wrong in the world. Watch the news night after night and go to sleep nervous. One day you will wake up and realize that you have burned up an incredible amount of energy, and essentially wasted a large part of your life.
“So what did you do with all the energy you were given during your brief time on the earth?” Saint Peter might ask.
“Pete, things are really bad down there,” you reply, “Had to play it safe, you know. Got good and worried mostly.”
Is that how you want the conversation to play out when your time comes?
It is very important to regularly recognize that you are not God. And the last time I checked, is was quite obvious that neither am I. This world is filled with overwhelming problems from our perspective. It really is. Things are bad – in many ways. If you and I really knew all that was going on right now around the world we likely wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.
Consider one other example: At this very moment, America continues in its steadfast march towards economic Armageddon. Hey, what’s another trillion dollars when you are already 16 trillion in the red? And why would any politician even try to balance the budget now if it means political suicide? Whether you vote Democrat or Republican, nothing significant is going to change. Doom and gloom is definitely on the horizon in the not-too-distant future.
This is reality, my friend.
Are you worried? Are you concerned? Can you still sleep at night? At one level, you should be very concerned. But at the same, you shouldn’t let this catastrophic problem consume your energy. For this problem isn’t ultimately your concern or primarily your responsibility. It isn’t.
The idea is to focus your time and energy on what you are responsible for, and let God – and in this case the government – worry about the global economy and how to go about running the world.
© Career & Life Direction 2012. All rights reserved.
