Dancing on the head of a pin
It is the first day of the new year and, as is true for many others, I have been preparing for this day by reviewing my goals and the progress on my goals in 2018.
My goals for 2018 were fairly modest. My primary goals were:
I think I have, at times, made a bit of progress towards achieving these goals, but perhaps the main growth is being a bit more aware of the difficulty of achieving these goals. Much of the time I feel as if my life dance is done on the head of a pin. In other words, I am always attempting to balance my spiritual goals with the acceptance of my humanness. The truth is:
If the length of our life journey is based on how well I am growing spiritually I can be assured of living through 2019 and many years thereafter! There is much room for growth! Yet, as the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron and many other wise teachers remind us , the goal is to non-judgmentally notice when I fall short; to not feed the negative thoughts or actions.
For today, I will accept my human dance on the head of a pin with as much humility, honesty and humor as this human can manage.
Written January 1, 2019
Jimmy F. Pickett
It is the first day of the new year and, as is true for many others, I have been preparing for this day by reviewing my goals and the progress on my goals in 2018.
My goals for 2018 were fairly modest. My primary goals were:
- Be more honest with myself.
- Be more aware when my love is conditional.
- Continue to set a goal of writing daily without being attached to this goal.
- Pray for those who criticize or judge me rather than judging in return.
I think I have, at times, made a bit of progress towards achieving these goals, but perhaps the main growth is being a bit more aware of the difficulty of achieving these goals. Much of the time I feel as if my life dance is done on the head of a pin. In other words, I am always attempting to balance my spiritual goals with the acceptance of my humanness. The truth is:
- Self-honesty is often very unattractive and uncomfortable. I like to think of myself at this late stage of my life journey as brave enough to be very comfortable with being openly and publicly honest. Yes, I continue to be aware of self-censoring what I say even to myself!
- Unconditional love is very hard. Just yesterday I was aware of feeling some self-pity and resentments. My thoughts were not nearly as generous as I thought they “should be” or wanted them to be.
- I am still often obsessively compulsive with my goal of completing tasks. This includes the task of daily writing and the task of deciding about the next step or goal with my writing. I have made progress in accepting that there are days when writing is not even on the list of priorities. Other than sharing my blog on Facebook and my web page I have not accepted the challenge to explore writing a book or even publishing a book of essays or my poetry. I also have not put much effort into finding and joining a group for writers. I do still do and submit the monthly assignment for the Florida group but I get no feedback from those peers.
- I have often done much better at mouthing the words of a prayer for those who are judging or criticizing me. Sometimes I even “feel” genuine love and compassion!
If the length of our life journey is based on how well I am growing spiritually I can be assured of living through 2019 and many years thereafter! There is much room for growth! Yet, as the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron and many other wise teachers remind us , the goal is to non-judgmentally notice when I fall short; to not feed the negative thoughts or actions.
For today, I will accept my human dance on the head of a pin with as much humility, honesty and humor as this human can manage.
Written January 1, 2019
Jimmy F. Pickett
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