Solitude and Loneliness

Happypizza: Here is an amazing collection of quotes on the subject of loneliness and solitude. Definitely worth a read, with some positive ways to look at the experience–and sometimes pain–of loneliness.

• All humans are frightened of their own solitude. But only in solitude can we learn to know ourselves, learn to handle our own eternal aloneness.–Han Suyin
• Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.–Thomas Browne
• Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.–Alice Koller
• Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life’s greatest tests alone.–Agnes Macphail
• Each of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. … When you face your aloneness, something begins to happen. Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes into a sense of true belonging. This is a slow and open-ended transition but it is utterly vital in order to come into rhythm with your own individuality. –John O’Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong)
• I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.–Peter Hoeg (Smilla’s Sense of Snow)
• I learned…that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.–Brenda Ueland
• I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.–Albert Einstein
• I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.–Henry David Thoreau
• Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.–Pearl S. Buck
• Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.–Jeanne Marie Laskas
• It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking . . . in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.–Franz Kafka
• It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse.–Max Nordau
• Language has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone, and the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.–Paul Johannes Tillich
• Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall.–Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.–Indra Devi
• Man cannot survive without air, water and sleep. Next in importance comes food. And close on its heels, solitude.–Thomas Szasz
• One must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.–Meister Eckhart
• Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.–Hans Margolius
• Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.–Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)
• The person who has not learned to be happy and content while completely alone for an hour a day, or a week has missed life’s greatest serenity.–H. Clay Tate (Building a Better Home Town)
• Solitude can be frightening because it invites us to meet a stranger we think we may not want to know–ourselves.–Melvyn Kinder
• Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.–Abraham Cowley
• Solitude gives birth to the original in us.–Thomas Mann
• Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.–James Russell Lowell
• …solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition…–Amelia Barr

Women and body image: a man’s perspective

Ever wondered why a man can look at an advert featuring a six-pack and laugh, while a woman might look at a photograph of female perfection and fall to pieces? William Leith thinks he might have uncovered the answer.

Advertising for lingerie Photo: PHILIPPE HAYS / ALAMY

By William Leith
Published: 7:00AM BST 23 May 2010

Plenty of guys have told me this story. The guy in question is preparing to go to a party with his girlfriend. She is trying on shoes and dresses. He is telling her how good she looks. She tries on more shoes, more dresses. And then: the sudden, inexplicable meltdown. She crumples on the bed. Something is horribly wrong. Now the party is out of the question.

The guy sits down. He hugs her. What’s the problem? Gradually the truth emerges. ‘Do you know what it was?’ the guy will say later to his friends. ‘She said she “didn’t look right”. She felt … I don’t know. Fat. Or that she was the wrong shape. It’s all about her body.’ He goes on: ‘I told her she looked great. Which she does, right?’

At this point the other guys will say, ‘Yeah – she looks great.’ And: ‘She looks fine.’ And: ‘I saw her the other day, wearing those shorts.’ And: ‘She is hot.’ Then the first guy will say, ‘That’s what I kept telling her. And that’s when she got really upset. She said, “You just don’t understand.”‘

It’s true – men, by and large, do not understand. In her book The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf made this point very powerfully. When a woman has a crisis of confidence about the way she looks there is nothing a man can do to console her.

‘Whatever he says hurts her more,’ says Wolf. ‘If he comforts her by calling the issue trivial, he doesn’t understand. It isn’t trivial at all. If he agrees with her that it’s serious, even worse: he can’t possibly love her, he thinks she’s fat and ugly.’

A Job for Roy–Murphy’s Law or Divine?

Times right now are hard for many people. Layoffs, foreclosures, poor health, and family breakups plague people of all ages and cause many to feel utter despair, while others exude joy and peace in spite of these adversities. My friend Roy is such a person. Even though the vicissitudes of life have kicked him a lot lately he carries a smile on his face and speaks a peaceful word to everyone.

We met last summer at the local employment office. While searching online for work I heard a melodious baritone voice make the following inquiry from a nearby computer, “Do you have a pencil I may use?”

Looking up from my computer monitor, I surveyed the room for the source of this wondrously resonant voice. Directly across from where I was seated was Roy, a slender, modestly-dressed gentleman who, like me, was out of work. This gentleman appeared to be someone well-acquainted with hard physical labor, yet he spoke as a genteel scholar with flawless grammar.

Curious, I inquired as to the type of work he was seeking. He informed me that he was searching for ministerial jobs across the southeastern U.S. Roy is a minister now, but in his former life he was a university professor and an assistant to the Governor of the State of Florida. Previously married with a fine house and furnishings, Roy now lives a simple life unfettered by most of the stuff that the rest of us have, want to have, or used to have. The uninformed observer would say that Roy was down on his luck, but Roy would never say that.

A Legend of Gratitude

There is a legend about two angels who were sent to earth to gather up the prayers of mankind.

One was to fill his basket with their petitions and the other was to gather their expressions of thankfulness. Some time later they both went back to the heavens.

One had a basket heaped high and running over with the innumerable petitions of men. The other returned with a sad and heavy heart, for his basket was almost empty.

The thanks of men were heard rarely on earth, even though the angel had searched diligently.

Let us not forget to express our thankuflness in our prayers.

Email From God

God's Email

To: YOU
Date: TODAY
From: GOD
Subject: YOURSELF
RE: LIFE

Dearest One,

Hi there! This is God. Today I will be handling All of your problems for you. I do Not need your help. So, have a nice day.

I love you.

God

P.S. And, remember…

If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do Not attempt to resolve it yourself! Kindly put it in the “SFGTD” (Something For God To Do) folder. I will get to it in MY TIME. All situations will be resolved, but in My time, not necessarily yours.

Once the matter is placed in the folder, do not worry about it. Instead, focus on all the wonderful things that are present in your life right now.

If you find yourself stuck in traffic, don’t despair. There are people in this world for whom driving is an unheard of privilege.

Should you have a bad day at work; think of the man who has been out of work for years.

Should you despair over a relationship gone bad; think of the person who has never known what it’s like to love and be loved in return.

Should you grieve the passing of another weekend; think of the man or woman in dire straits, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week to feed their children.

Should your car break down, leaving you miles away from assistance; think of the paraplegic who would love the opportunity to take that walk.

Should you notice a new gray hair in the mirror; think of the cancer patient in chemo who wishes they had hair to examine.

Should you find yourself at a loss and pondering what is life all about, asking “what is my purpose?” Be thankful. There are those who didn’t live long enough to get the opportunity.

Should you find yourself the victim of other people’s bitterness, ignorance, smallness or insecurities; remember, things could be worse–you could be one of them!

Now, you go ahead and have a nice day.

–Author Unknown

God loves you!

Two Paths

Happypizza: This article was written by a good friend of mine and I really enjoyed it. Sometimes when making a post, I try to find a picture or design something that goes along with the theme of the post. It’s a pretty time consuming process for me, especially when I get into working with photoshop. I started the pic below a few weeks ago but got kinda stuck with some “photoshop block”. So I left off for sometime hoping I would get a good concept or idea later.

Today for some reason I was feeling extra creative so I decided to give it another shot and I ended up putting together the picture below in a relatively short amount of time. I know my graphic work is not on a professional level…but I was quite happy with the final picture. I give God the credit for giving me that extra boost of creativity that helped me finish it!

Two Paths

Two Paths

I went to see a friend the other day. I passed through two sets of polished doors and ascended the building in a gleaming elevator to get to his office. A receptionist offered me a cup of gourmet coffee before ushering me into a spacious conference room, where personal mementos, souvenirs from world travels, and numerous awards competed for space on teak shelves.

My friend arrived a minute later and greeted me warmly with a winning smile, his tailored suit slightly rumpled from a long day in the office. He sighed as he sat down across from me, and his smile dropped momentarily, revealing a tired and careworn face.

“Long day?” I inquired. He nodded. It had been a long day. It seemed like every day was a long day, even weekends, especially now with the burgeoning economy and the flood of new projects coming the company’s way. Business was good and he was happy, he said, but I knew him well enough to not completely believe him.

Had I already heard that he was buying a second house? His wife was visiting friends in Rome and had been gone for over a month now, his children were studying abroad, and he had just returned from Madrid. A third car was arriving from the BMW showroom next week. An extra car would make things easier for him and his family. One less thing to argue about. There had been a lot of changes recently—a new office in a better location, a more efficient staff, a better PR manager—and there were more changes coming in his company’s management, image, and products. It takes a lot to succeed in the fast-paced world of today.

Sometimes the best things in life are the things that money can’t buy

We chatted about my recent volunteer work, a trip to a flooded province. He glanced through the pictures I showed him and commented on the beauty and simplicity of rural life.

His phone rang and…