For the past couple of years i've been thinking about what really matters in the grand scheme of things. i don't know if it works this way for others but certain things rattle around in my head for a couple years before they get anywhere. The decision to drink alcohol took somewhere from 3-5 years. Perhaps you ponder something for a week and then know fully everything you think about the topic. For me it takes a while.
That said, the question of what really matters is one i fully expect to take a long time. i'm glad to be dealing with it now though. i recently picked up some Tolstoy and, in reading some of his non-fiction, found that in his fifties he was pondering very similar issues. After living a successful, and arguably important, life he questioned everything. This period in his life brought about massive personal change and that personal change draumatically impacted the world around him.
i also think about the diciples in a similar context. The disciples (post resurection) all lived to the death for Chirst; the aposlte Paul as well. These men, once misfits and losers, lived their life with determination and conviction. Something changed them. Something similar can be said of Tolstoy. He hit a point where what he once knew would no longer suffice.
i've often considered myself weak, unspectacular, quiet. i often fail to stand up for things i believe strongly in; often while fighting for things that simply cannot matter. That simply will not do anymore. i think the first step is deciding what truly matters. Once that is done, i can decide how to live in light of what matters.
Part of it is also letting the things which don't matter slide. I'm confronted with this one regularly. I'll get upset over something at work. On the whole, work is important. It is the little issues we get up in arms about that are typically the unimportant. They cause unnecessary frustration and they take our eyes off those things which do matter.
i hope one day to have the balanced perspective of a man who knows what matters in life. i hope this so that i may live the life that i believe to be the only possible outcome of such a perspective.
. . . face first is mine.
