home

After living in Morocco for two years, I'm finding that I wouldn't be happy staying here forever and I'm not happy to be leaving either.  There are things I love about the culture, but also things I don't like.  I feel the same way about American culture too though.  I'm beginning to think being anywhere is a trade off. 

There isn't really one place, one country, or one culture that feels like home.  Perhaps that's part of the human condition.  Or I haven't looked long enough.  I've found that each place, country, and culture has strengths and weaknesses.  I think it's supposed to be that way.  It keeps us wanting more and keeps us striving for utopia.

I believe that Home isn't a place, person, or group of people you find.  You have to make Home wherever you feel that it should be.  I'm coming to find that my Home is scattered all across the globe.  There's one physical location that feels like home to me, but really my Home is with a small group of individuals that let me put my bags down and find rest in them.  It's where I find peace and strength.  With them I most feel like Me.

passion: let me not beg for the stilling of my pain

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield,
but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant that I may not be a coward,
feeling Your mercy in my success alone;

But let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure.”

by Rabindranath Tagore

percolating thoughts (#9)

['Percolating thoughts' is an on-going collection of quotes I have found and gained wisdom from.  These are the ones that I've recently discovered and that I'm currently sitting with and reflecting on...]

"A person often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it."
-Jean de La Fontaine

“Prayer might not change things, but it will change my perspective of things. Prayer might not change the past, but inevitably, it changes the present.”
-Margaret Feinberg

"Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it."
-Harold S. Kushner


"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you."
-Harold S. Kushner summarizing Viktor Frankl's insight

actions can change your thinking

I recently read about a study that said changing your behavior can lead to changes in your mindset.  "Changes in behavior create changes in mindset. If you act powerfully, you will begin to think powerfully. Cuddy theorizes that some people are a bit more assertive then others, naturally, but by behaving in assertive ways and adopted assertive poses, they magnify their advantages."

But if you act more powerfully, it's because you want to be more powerful and want others to perceive you as more powerful.  So I guess we should start acting like the people we want to be, and then we will become that person.  It seems simple enough.

I think our personalities are more malleable than we think they are.