Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Too much of enthusiasm/excitement is also bad...

Sound piece of advice...

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A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
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Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive. -- Milarepa


Some people are fortunate enough to have a great wealth of vitality. But when we are feeling especially full of energy, we may be likely to take up too many activities at the same time.
We make big plans, but then a great deal of our enthusiasm simply drains away in excitement. When we start to put our plans into action, we find we have run out of steam.

The culprit here is the excitement itself. It is the nature of excitement that it cannot last. It has to die down, and when it does, the same project we began with such enthusiasm looks utterly boring. It is full of dull, drab details that we had not foreseen. And we give up. The project has not changed; our energy that fueled it is depleted.

To achieve our highest potential in life, we must cultivate the capacity to carry through. Activity is not achievement. It is not enough to rush about beginning a lot of things and keeping busy. A well-spent life is one that rounds out what it has begun. The life of a great artist or scientist is usually shaped by a single desire, carried through to the very end.

Direct your life to the overriding spiritual goal and lesser activities will take their proper place.

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