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Tag Archives: Wisdom

Going Back to School…

28 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by Cheryl Ries in aging, Attitude, Change, Choices, Growing, Lessons, Life, Maturity, Peace, Purpose, Wisdom

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Back to School, Maturity, Wisdom

Going back to school is really just waking up every day to face life! We never stop learning! All of our lives we must face the fact that we’re always students. We might wish we had moved past that when we left our late teens or early twenties, but in truth, we’re always students having to learn something, taking tests, studying, and moving on. It never ends, this relationship of ours as students in life! It is ongoing, through all facets, stages, and conditions in which we exist. We never stop learning, even when we are adamantly opposed to the notion, or reject the idea outright! If only we could learn to embrace the role, perhaps the role itself would help bring direction to our lives and some peace to our minds.  

During our childhood, we endured years of mandatory schooling, whereby we had to meet certain standards necessary for us to move forward into new pursuits and educational challenges. There wasn’t a way to evade that part of our journey, especially during my generation. Public schools were the norm, and standards were created nationally as well as by each state to keep all students aligned with the pursuit of obtaining certain educational goals. There were standards required in every subject, for every grade level, and for every type of school. The only way we could get to higher grades and levels of achievement in those grades was by accomplishing each grade’s standards before moving on to the next. In my generation, the late baby boomers, there weren’t many opportunities to bypass public school, unless our parents could afford to send us to private schools. There weren’t many home-schooled children that I knew of, and there were no online schools or diploma alternative tests. We were either students, at least from kindergarten through the end of high school, or we were drop-outs. 

Having no real choice in the matter, as education seemed essential and mandatory, I then went into each new grade with a sense that it was necessary for my future and inevitable for my progress! Being a student was the role I was in from the age of five through seventeen. I went from grade school to middle school and then high school. The first period of choice I had after those twelve years of not dropping out was going to college when I was seventeen. I chose to go. It wasn’t until sometime in my mid-twenties that I realized the whole student/learning process I had celebrated when it had finally concluded in my early twenties actually hadn’t ended at all! It was still ongoing and never ends until the day we die!    

Every day we are learning, going through some lesson, facing some test(s), and determining through such profound moments whether or not we progress onward in our lives! Our role as students in life never ceases, as we are always moving into new circumstances, developing other skills, becoming more adept, learning something new, changing our minds, and growing in wisdom. Each new day we should wake up preparing for that day’s classroom called life! Every day we are really still just students going back to school, but in a classroom without walls, our teachers coming and going with their unique lessons, and our homework found in attitudinal shifts, mental challenges, and quizzical mysteries. We are in one long grade from the time we leave our formal educational confines, the role of actual student, and officially graduate into life. It’s called the process of maturing, and it takes all of our lives to do well! It also takes accepting that we’re never done being a student of something, today, tomorrow, and the next. Each day we must face our lessons, tests, and hope for promotion onward to the next day’s subjects, lessons, tests, and so on. 

Tomorrow when you awaken, the bell will be ringing…school has begun! 

Maturing is What Our Souls Do…

10 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by Cheryl Ries in aging, Attitude, Choices, Fear, Growing, Lessons, Life, Maturity, Persistence, Purpose, Strength, Trials, Wisdom

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Maturity, Strength, Wisdom

Growing up is what our bodies do, maturing is what our souls do. When life comes at us rapidly and we don’t know how to handle what we are experiencing, it’s just life’s way of letting us know we aren’t as mature as we could be or need to be! We need to do more to prepare ourselves to deal and cope with the future challenges ahead.  

Don’t cheat yourself out of the necessary experiences which propel you to maturity by evading them or escaping from your share of responsibility for them! All of that in life which you might experience which is really difficult, painful, or frightening, cannot destroy you unless you let it. In the face of everything which feels uncomfortable and at times disturbing, you must hunker down, find your strength, persevere through, and eventually overcome! 

That is our challenge throughout life, to resolve our own dilemmas, to face our fears, to cope with our emotions, and to learn through experience the wisdom necessary to move onward even through the most difficult, life-altering, or perplexing matters. At the end of our road, with such purposeful focus, we’re sure to be as noticeably mature within as we are visibly grown on the outside!

The Gift That Keeps Giving . .

10 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Choices, God, Life, Maturity, Strength

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Fruit of the Spirit, Maturity, Patience, Wisdom

Patience is the lesson learned through many of life’s complications, trivial and more serious! It’s the realization that you’ll have to tolerate what at the time and at the moment seems intolerable, even if only for a short time! Patience is a fruit of our Spirit, found within us naturally, but surely requiring lessons and purposeful attention to developing! Patience convinces us to remain calm, to stay peaceful within, to consider situations purposefully, and to not react without first thinking things through. Patience accepts flaws and tolerates the imperfections of human nature and life itself!  

I try not to measure my patience or lack there of! As soon as I crow about my patience through something, it will invariably bring on a challenge or test which causes me to eat my words! I think God teaches us in the middle of our trials so that we know it’s not of our doing, but His! And if I am ever actually sufficient in patience, I will surely know that it is God’s handiwork in my life. It surely wouldn’t be all my doing! I still struggle, daily!

 

This past week, while finishing up the pruning and trimming of some trees in my yard, trying to clean up after Winter in preparation for Summer ahead, I was attacked by tiny black ants biting my feet! I was actually doing the last few things on my list early one morning when it occurred. The attack was annoying at the moment, but I brushed the pesky ants off and continued my work until I could get out of their reach. It wasn’t until later on, and especially in days to come, that I paid attention to the effects of their foray with my feet! The bites I received became highly sensitive to itching whenever they were touched or even brushed against. And if I actually forgot about the bites while half-asleep, scratching my feet mindlessly, I set off a terrible itch almost instantly! It was so annoying to suffer the side effect from that one brief moment in the yard for several days afterward. Even anti-itch creams took their sweet time to work on the seven or so inflamed spots on both my feet!  

Finally, the itching passed, after a few tedious days. But the whole event felt like the gift that keeps on giving for that time! That is the hard thing about being patient, it requires strength and perseverance over a set of circumstances which usually are not all that pleasant or fun, much less something we’ve chosen! Much like the bites on my feet, the event itself was not much fun, and the continued itch was surely unpleasant! Patience was required if I didn’t want to drive myself insane!  

Now, not all tests of our patience are so trivial. Not all tests are so short-term or so inconsequential to our lives overall. We often have to endure lengthy ordeals which eat away at our ability to stay the course! Emotions are usually the reason for waning patience! We just hate to endure what we don’t want to. And any discomfort, any pain, anything through which we process negative emotions, are the attacks we wage on our own fledgling patience muscles! We fight a barrage of emotions and feelings which encourage us to abandon our budding patience in favor of having what we what now, rather than enduring what we find difficult or even impossible! Patience is always a test of our will, our emotions giving way against our determination to persist with maturity against our own emotions! To be able to control one’s own emotions is a sign of maturity, as then one has more dominion over self! The more emotionally immature we are, the more reactionary we tend to be and thus, unable to stand strong against whatever our emotions dictate. Comfort, ease, need, desire, fear, insecurity and many other internal drives play upon our emotions. We hate to be uncomfortable, to feel deprived, to have unmet needs, or to suffer for any length of time! And so, we settle for less, choose an alternative, or give up on what we’re pursuing rather than patiently forge ahead.

Patience it is said is a virtue. It can protect us from emotional contests, willful battles, and serious mistakes which take us off course. Patience leads to more civility amongst people and prospers respect for others. It is only through our patience that we learn to be humble, to tolerate others, and to wait for what is truly meant to be ours. Patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit because it enables us to deal with one another with more loving kindness and better reason, as each of us is unique and independent, it gives us more measured concern. It is required in life to keep us from falling into bad habits, from making hasty erroneous judgments, and from reacting without forethought. And most of all, patience teaches us the art of self-control, self-discipline, and self-acceptance, as our flaws and failings are a natural part of the human experience. And the more patient we are with our own flaws, the more patient we are with those of others!

Now, if I could just be patient about ant bites and other buggy assaults! 

Living In The Present . .

09 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Choices, Conquering Fear, Contentment, Happiness, Lessons, Self-Control, Wisdom

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Escape, Peace, Wisdom

Have you thought at times how wonderful it would be to live someplace else? Rather than here, rather than now, for dwelling someplace other than in the current situation might seem like a rewarding way to live life; it might seem like an escape! After all, don’t we often dwell in two other sought-after places as much as possible as a means of escape or as a way of providing ourselves comfort from the here and now? 

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We often travel to the past, a destination which cannot be changed; which has a great hold on our emotions and our psyches. There in the past, we think we can find a solution to our present woes; or perhaps we think we can find a way to heal something which was broken or fix something which faltered. If only our reasoning in regards to the past were able at this time, this day and for this particular subject, to lead us like a detective to some light-bulb moment which we could change back then. If only we could alter in our own minds the steps which led back then from A to B, we would now realize our current residency in C would be more acceptable and not such a source or contention or dismay. If only! 

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And often we desire travel to the future, a place which remains unknown no matter how hard we look or how far we try to see.  We have such high hopes of altering our current state of life by learning about what the unknown future holds for us. Like wayward time-travelers, if we could just take our capsule to the farthest reaches of some galaxy ahead of the here and now, we would know for certain that what we’re doing now is laying the appropriate groundwork for what will happen to us then. We could see what to fear, or what to evade or know for certain so many aspects which make up the great body of uncertainty looming ahead. Perhaps we think by knowing what is coming and when, we will in some way be better prepared for living these present days sans error, mistakes and heartbreaks.

 

Sadly, both destinations truly cannot really make the here and now any better; but we insist upon spending a great deal of time preparing to go, musing our emotions and reasoning away our thoughts about both travel spots! Do they really serve as an escape from the here and now; or are both destinations often detrimental to our enjoyment and our contentment of the here and now? I would guess that more often than not, traveling and spending too much time in either the past or the future leads us to less pleasure, comfort and peace in the here and now! Life is occurring right here and right now. If we gave our energy and turned our thoughts to how we might be content and at peace with the current state of things, we might realize how very blessed, how very fortunate and how very comfortable things are for us. And if we feel today is fine as is there is no need to draw anything but lessons from the past and to live with hope for the future! Comfort, peace and enjoyment now require no escape! All of that comfort, peace and enjoyment now comes through acceptance of the past, known and unchangeable; and faith in the future, sight unseen. Live for today and in today; let yesterday be but a guide and tomorrow, just a hopeful promise.

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AN ADAGE A DAY

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Uncategorized

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Goodness, Wisdom

AN ADAGE A DAY

Have you ever stopped to realize why all the adages you’ve heard your whole lifetime exist?  Because they’re true!  Somehow, the good and smart people before you, involved in similar circumstances, decided to forewarn you.  So they made up some clever and precise adages, which people toss around and some actually pay heed. 

My favorite is: no good deed goes unpunished.  That is so true.  When you do something for someone else, no matter what it is, if you have any expectation attached, you will feel “punished”, or perhaps let down at least by the outcome.  It’s usually the case that the other person or people never really know your agenda, nor your motives, so they rarely do things in the same manner or with the same desired outcome.   Sometimes too, it is as if the world is backhanding you when you attempt to do something right.  Perhaps it is the case that you are trying to do something for all the wrong reasons, those which garner you attention instead of doing it anonymously, as should be the way of doing gestures like that.  Or maybe, this adage is true because we are in some state of guilt over something we didn’t do well enough when doing what we are called to do in life, so a layer of bitterness forms over our giving hearts, which prevents us from feeling anything but guilty for our actions.  And finally, we may just find we are giving things, or of ourselves, to people who just don’t want what we are giving.  They either don’t feel the same, or they don’t want what we deemed so special a gift.  There could be a million different explanations, but the world seems to display a counter-balance for every action, so it seems logical that for the good deed will come the punishable aftermath.  

Another adage I enjoy is:  an apple a day keeps the doctor away.  Now this I am beginning to believe in earnest!  I have reached that time in my life when things go wrong just because.  There aren’t definitive moments of injury or illness I can note, just constant degradation of the “mechanism” which is me.  Something aches for no reason, this feels strange for a different day, that hurts when I do this or that . . . it makes no sense.  It’s called getting old and we all must do it with grace, hopefully.  I choose to fight against it, maybe this is the universe fighting back??  I was always so healthy and without injury when young, now I ache here, I moan there.  It’s a neverending story . . .this perceived battle between time and our bodies.  Aging gracefully might just mean not struggling so and letting all the feelings wash over us, changing what we can, accepting what we cannot change, and learning, as they say, to know full well the difference! 

No matter which adages are your favorites for whatever reasons, wisdom is what made them so.  Wisdom born of someone else’s aggravations, time, encounters, feelings, pain, and situational summarization, just so that you could say, “Gee, I’m not alone!”.

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