Setting New Scenes

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Albert Schweitzer
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Why should I be used up? Why should anyone ever be used up? I have memories about my career and sometimes I think about them. but eventually I reach a point where I realize that in the long run they're not that important. Life is much bigger than what you choose to do with it. That should be an energizing thought not a depressing one,

Now what about us can get used up? When the peanut butter is all gone do we rue the loss of peanut butter and give up, or do we go out and get some more? If our energy is used up we rest and regain it. If our effectiveness at a job wanes, we can hold on to the job or step aside and let a younger person take it over. That doesn't mean that we are used up..

What about goals, personal goals? When a goal is achieved the efforts and struggles to attain it may be used up . That doesn't mean that we are used up. There is a certain nihilistic mentality some will adopt which causes them to identify themselves with their life's struggles as if they had forfeited the right to any other identity. In such a person the attainment of the goal means the end of struggle and therefore the end of identity, the end of usefulness.

And what if the goal is never attained. I have a list of goals I never attained. I can sit and wish I had reached them, but wishing does not make up my day. It does not describe who I am to myself. There is always something to do. There is an importance to everyone's life. We must rid ourselves of any temporary or chronic fetters of uselessness. Turn around, your stock and trade of abilities may be in a place you didn't notice because you were holding on to an empty peanut butter jar.

DB - The Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

4 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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