Thought of the day #1
Watch carefully the magic that occurs when you give a person just enough comfort to be themselves. — Atticus
When I read this quote this morning, something specific popped in my head. A conversation that I had with my bother over breakfast last week while he was visiting. It was a good conversation, but not magical. His opinion may differ. Now, I am also thinking more general. This quote initially pointed my brain towards interactions with others, but as I read it again, I also read it as our interaction with ourselves. How often do we allow ourselves to just be? This is where we learn. Where we grow. And that is where the magic is.
We all wear masks throughout the day. We might wear the leader mask, thoughtful and inspirational. Or the significant other mask, supportive and caring, Or even the older brother mask, challenging yet encouraging. The list goes on. But none of these masks are you. At best they, are the you of the moment.
A couple years ago, when I was going through an extremely rough patch of my life, a friend of mine gave me a book. Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steven Hagen. I try to avoid all things religious, so I was a little hesitant at first. But he kept bugging me to read it for about a month. Now I’m not saying that this book changed my life completely. Nor am I saying that everyone should run out and buy it right away. But it did change the way I thought about myself.
People don’t need to be taught, they only need to be reminded.
— Steven Hagen
I always thought of myself as a fixer. Don’t know why, I just always have. The two most important things I took away from the book were, not every problem is my problem to fix and not every problem needs fixing. When I read this it wasn’t something profound that I had never heard. I hadn’t discovered some secret that had been hidden from me my entire life. I already knew it; I had just forgotten. Later in the book when I read “People don’t need to be taught, they only need to be reminded.” I laughed out loud in the middle of a packed metro car.
Our masks help us forget who we are. Being a little selfish and giving ourselves “just enough comfort” to let ourselves just be, is how we remember.
