Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Experience

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Albert Einstein, Experience, Getting out there, Learning, Living, Spiritual, wisdom

“The only source of knowledge is experience.” – Albert Einstein

Quote provided by: Brainyquote.com

Read about any sport. Now go play the sport you read about. Huge difference right? This is what Albert is referring to. Albert Einstein is well known for his thought experiments but also for his prowess in Math and Physics.

Look at anyone who is gifted in a particular area. All of them practice. All of them do. They gain knowledge of their sport, their gift, or their talent by learning how to do it themselves. Look at any sports hero you admire. Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan started out just as ignorant as the rest of the folks who ever picked up a baseball bat or basketball.

I don’t care what field of study or endeavor you look at. Every person has to start out as a beginner and work there way to expert. Some read about what they need to know to accomplish something, others learn from a coach or mentor, some just grit through it and learn on their own.

Think back to a time you learned to ride a bike, drive a car, or learned how to operate a cash register in your first job. Someone told you how to do it, then they showed you how to do it, and then they let you do it. It took a little time, but you learned. With time, you can now ride a bike, drive a car, and operate a computer or some other complicated machine with ease.

We learn all kinds of things through experience. We learn how to ask a girl out on a date. We learn what it means to be nice or polite. We learn how important it is to keep our commitments to other people. Some of this learning is through trial and error. We ask a girl out on a date and totally flub it up. Then we ask out another girl and it goes a little better. We learn what to say. We learn how to react to the responses a girl gives.

Sometimes experience isn’t so nice. Think about a time you committed to something and couldn’t keep your promise. The person we made the commitment to is upset with us and we feel guilty. We learn that we need to be more careful when committing to something because breaking that commitment hurts worse than the disappointment someone expresses when we tell them we can’t do this or that.

There are so many experiences in a lifetime. All of them teach us something about ourselves and other people. We learn all the time if we pay attention. We learn more if we are willing to get out there and do something. Life is about gaining experience. We need experience to grow. We need to learn what to do and what not to do. Through experience we gain wisdom.

I hope each of you has a great Saturday! The weatherman predicts thunderstorms today. Today will be a day of reading, writing, gaming, and catching a series or movie in the den with Dad. What are you doing today?

Until next time…

Dave

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Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursdays

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Challenges, Experience, Gratitude, improvement, Learning, Opposites, Paradox, Thanks, Travis Barker

“Thank you for life, and all the little ups and downs that make it worth living.” – Travis Barker

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/travis_barker_468582?src=t_thankful

I am grateful for this life. A life filled with adventure, love, learning, and interacting with others. I am grateful for the problems, challenges, sorrows, and mistakes. I am grateful for the teachers and mentors I have benefited from. I am grateful for everything this life has provided to me. Without the challenges, life would be boring.

Think about your life for a moment. How can you be happy without the ability to be sad? How can you be healthy without the ability to be sick? How can you be bored without the ability to be engaged?

We live in a world that is composed of opposites and paradoxes. These opposites are necessary for our existence. Without the valleys there would be no mountains. Without heat there would not be cold. Without problems there would be no solutions.

I am grateful for change. Without change life would be static. There would be no growth, no learning, no experiences worth our while. The changes that come in our lives make life interesting. They keep us on our toes. They spurn learning, particularly when life tosses us an unpleasant surprise.

Think about the last time you were sick. When you get better you cherish the health that returns. Think about the last time you lost a loved one. When you find a new partner, pet, or friend you cherish that relationship more because you have felt loneliness, emptiness, and sorrow.

Think about when you learned the most. It is likely a time of stress, peril, and uncertainty. Without the opposites that are ever-present in our lives, we would have nothing to compare the good times with. They would all just be. This would cause problems because our minds could not grasp good or bad, up or down, light or dark. We need change. We need the opposites. We need the ups and downs of life.

Each year around this time, I contemplate my life. I look at past mistakes. I look at past victories. I look at my experiences. Some of these experiences have been unpleasant. Some of these experiences have been wonderful. Some of these experiences have been horrible. Some of these experiences have been healing. With each experience we go through we come out of them stronger, wiser, and more loving.

Why is the world set up this way? Why are we here? We are here to learn how to give love and receive love. We are here to become stronger spiritually. We are here to contribute to one another and participate in life. Your life is about learning, teaching, communicating, and contributing. Right now, you are the strongest and best you have ever been.

I invite you to do the same thing I am doing. Contemplate your life. Find those time periods where you had great success. Find the times your life was turned inside out. Look for patterns. You’ll be amazed when you see how each problem or challenge you faced made you stronger and put you in a situation that was better than the situation you were in previously.

Once you have completed this exercise, write down the things you have learned. Write down the things you have done. Write down the things you would like to do. Then get around to doing them. Live a life of meaning, purpose, and achievement. What else do you have to do?

I hope you are having a great time this year. I hope you have some goals you are committed to. I hope you are laying the plans for a great 2019. I wish all of you well on your journey this year.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Experience, Personality, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, spirituality, Uniqueness

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Found at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/pierre_teilhard_de_chardi_160888?src=t_spiritual

Have you ever thought about how different each of us is from one another? We all interpret the world differently. We all experience things differently. These experiences add the ways we interpret and react to the world.

Who are we? Are we this body that will run down and die? Are we the mind that will degrade and lose its elasticity? What makes our personality unique?

I am not going to inject my opinion here. Instead, I’ll just give you something to ponder for the rest of the weekend, should you choose to do so. The clue is in the quote above.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote

Tags

Experience, Good times, Life, Quote, trouble, Victoria Holt

Happy Saturday Readers!

Today’s quote:

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” – Victoria Holt

I really like this quote because it speaks to life. Our life is a series of experiences. Our attitudes, values, norms, and beliefs are what dictate whether an experience is good or bad. Imagine taking a stance where all experience was good because of its contribution to our learning.

We learn when we mess up right? We really do not learn anything when we get things right. We really do not learn anything when we are having an easy time of it. When things are easy we tend to sit back and enjoy it. It’s the hard times that truly benefit us, even though we wished they didn’t happen. Who likes to get hurt, sick, lose a loved one, or run into financial troubles? How do we react to these situations?

At first, we’re in shock. No one ever expects a loved one to die or leave us for another. No one ever expects to lose their job without notice. No one ever expects to be told they have a new condition or disease to worry about and no one purposely goes out of their way to sprain an ankle or break an arm.

What do we do? We deal with these things. We learn to compensate, we learn to be happy without someone being around, and we learn how to pick up the pieces and find a new job. All of this takes time, mind you, but we all adapt to our misfortunes and climb our way out of the hole we’ve dug. Interestingly, if we pay attention, our situations, after we’ve overcome hardships, tend to get better.

We end up with someone that is better for us. We end up with a new job that is better tailored to our circumstances. We end up compensating physically to an illness, disease, or condition, and learn new skills or find new alternatives. Ultimately, we become stronger, better, and more resilient, only to be hit by another challenge in the future.

Pay attention.

Learn.

Experience.

After a while, the ebbs and flows of life won’t matter. You’ll be strong enough to handle anything and take it in stride. You’ll enjoy the good times more deeply and you’ll deal with future problems with grace and love. After all, what are we here to do in this life? We are here to learn how to give and receive love.

I hope you have a terrific Saturday!

See you tomorrow…