What All The World's A-Seeking: The Vital Law of True Life, True Greatness Power and HappinessTrine, Ralph Waldo
Religion
What All The World's A-Seeking: The Vital Law of True Life, True Greatness Power and Happiness
Trine, Ralph Waldo
Character; Christian life; Conduct of life
In order to be concrete, even at the risk of being personal, I will say
that in my own experience there have come at various times into my life
circumstances and conditions that I gladly would have run from at the
time--conditions that caused at the time humiliation and shame and
anguish of spirit. But invariably, as sufficient time has passed, I have
been able to look back and see clearly the part which every experience
of the type just mentioned had to play in my life. I have seen the
lessons it was essential for me to learn; and the result is that now I
would not drop a single one of these experiences from my life,
humiliating and hard to bear as they were at the time; no, not for the
world. And here is also a lesson I have learned: whatever conditions are
in my life to-day that are not the easiest and most agreeable, and
whatever conditions of this type all coming time may bring, I will take
them just as they come, without complaint, without depression, and meet
them in the wisest possible way; knowing that they are the best possible
conditions that could be in my life at the time, or otherwise they would
not be there; realizing the fact that, although I may not at the time
see why they are in my life, although I may not see just what part they
have to play, the time will come, and when it comes I will see it all,
and thank God for every condition just as it came.
Each one is so apt to think that his own conditions, his own trials or
troubles or sorrows, or his own struggles, as the case may be, are
greater than those of the great mass of mankind, or possibly greater
than those of anyone else in the world. He forgets that each one has his
own peculiar trials or troubles or borrows to bear, or struggles in
habits to overcome, and that his is but the common lot of all the human
race. We are apt to make the mistake in this--in that we see and feel
keenly our own trials, or adverse conditions, or characteristics to be
overcome, while those of others we do not see so clearly, and hence we
are apt to think that they are not at all equal to our own. Each has his
own problems to work out. Each must work out his own problems. Each must
grow the insight that will enable him to see what the causes are that
have brought the unfavorable conditions into his life; each must grow
the strength that will enable him to face these conditions, and to set
into operation forces that will bring about a different set of
conditions. We may be of aid to one another by way of suggestion, by way
of bringing to one another a knowledge of certain higher laws and
forces,--laws and forces that will make it easier to do that which we
would do. The doing, however, must be done by each one for himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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