Practice Rather Than Preach-Daily Meditation-September 28, 2022
Today’s quotation:
Practice rather than preach. Make your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level. -Alexander Haig
Today’s Meditation:
There are many people in the world who are much more comfortable preaching than they are practicing. We don’t have to be like that, though, and as long as we’re aware of the need to maintain consistency between our words and our actions, we have a very good chance of making our life an affirmation–of our values, of our beliefs, of our desire to help our fellow human beings in the ways we best can do so.
When we practice without preaching to others, people can sense our authenticity. They know that we’re being ourselves and not expecting them to live up to some artificial expectations that we’ve built up of them, and they can relax around us, be comfortable with us, and learn from us. When we move our own lives and actions to a higher level, then we don’t even need to preach to others–our very lives will be all the message that we want or need to send to others.
Our lives become what we make them. They don’t just happen. We always have a choice: do we make them affirmations of our higher selves, the selves that love and dare and share and feel compassion with others, or do we make them affirmations of our fears, our frustrations, our critical sides that see the faults in others? Do we make ourselves “feel better” by negating and cutting down others, or do we simply build ourselves up to a point at which we never need to cut down a single person for any reason at all?
Questions to consider:
How can you go about making your life an affirmation today?
What does it mean to define our lives by our ideals rather than by the negation of others?
How can you go beyond the level of your capability?
For further thought:
Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like seafarers on the desert waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.-Carl Schurz