The other day I was spending some wonderful time with Flossie, my eight-year-old daughter.
We were having a rather philosophical discussion and I said, “Perhaps this is heaven right here. Perhaps heaven is a choice.”
“This can’t be heaven,” Flossie retorted. “If I fall off Cookie, I’ll hurt myself. In heaven you couldn’t hurt yourself.”
“Maybe,” I replied.
I continued to ponder it; in a world where there was no failure, no pain, no challenge, where’s the fun, I thought?
Maybe we need that to appreciate the good.
Or maybe that’s a silly belief that’s instilled in us.
Perhaps Flossie is right…
One of the greatest lies we tell ourselves is that we’re falling behind. That someone else is ahead.
As a young man I associated strength with force; louder voices, sharper opinions, firm lines in the sand.
There’s a strange kind of pride we’ve developed in being exhausted. But even lions, the king of the jungle, rest.
We sometimes believe strength means self-sufficiency — that being independent means being isolated.