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Self-help, spirituality and love
Oct. 2nd, 2008 05:30 pmAn interesting quote from an article about a Harvard psychiatrist who wrote a book about spirituality.
"This is not about spirituality as some kind of self-help. It's more like a barn-raising. Self-help is like tickling yourself. No one since the beginning of time has been able to tickle themselves or give themselves a massage. If you want to feel good, get another person to rub your back. Even better, rub someone else's."
In many small ways over the past few months, two ideas keep revisiting me. One is that true fulfillment lies in connections with other people, which fits nicely with my personal life-purpose mandate to love God and my fellow humans. The other is that the way out of depression and despair is to focus outward, to do something for someone else. (I'm not saying that second one is true for clinical depression, but it can't hurt, right?)
Evan and I started on a project to define our family as a sort of business, with a vision, mission statement, objectives and projects. It sounds goofy, but apparently it's what we need to do at the moment because we haven't been so connected in a long time. And one thing we did was try to define our life's purpose, the reason we're here, the thing that we'd regret if we didn't accomplish in our lifetime. (I know, you're thinking of one of a thousand comedy sketches about the meaning of life.) It turned out that Evan's and mine were quite different, though related. I won't try to explain his, but mine is basically, you know, to love. There are a lot of ways to say it, but that's the essence.
What's yours?
"This is not about spirituality as some kind of self-help. It's more like a barn-raising. Self-help is like tickling yourself. No one since the beginning of time has been able to tickle themselves or give themselves a massage. If you want to feel good, get another person to rub your back. Even better, rub someone else's."
In many small ways over the past few months, two ideas keep revisiting me. One is that true fulfillment lies in connections with other people, which fits nicely with my personal life-purpose mandate to love God and my fellow humans. The other is that the way out of depression and despair is to focus outward, to do something for someone else. (I'm not saying that second one is true for clinical depression, but it can't hurt, right?)
Evan and I started on a project to define our family as a sort of business, with a vision, mission statement, objectives and projects. It sounds goofy, but apparently it's what we need to do at the moment because we haven't been so connected in a long time. And one thing we did was try to define our life's purpose, the reason we're here, the thing that we'd regret if we didn't accomplish in our lifetime. (I know, you're thinking of one of a thousand comedy sketches about the meaning of life.) It turned out that Evan's and mine were quite different, though related. I won't try to explain his, but mine is basically, you know, to love. There are a lot of ways to say it, but that's the essence.
What's yours?
