Category: Words of Wisdom

In a previous post, I have shared some things we need to bring along in our journey to make it a more meaningful and fruitful one.

However, we should also be reminded to keep things light and not bring along so many things that couldn’t help us, or that merely hold us back from fully enjoying our journey. What are these things? There are so many burdens we keep, but I will share with you three things that are easy to remember:

1. Anger

Anger weighs us down so much that unless we could let it go, we couldn’t go so far in our journey. At first, we may feel that it is pushing us intensely to do something, but later, we’d realize that it is really holding us back from doing the things we truly desire to do. Let go of anger. Forgive, if not for the person who hurt you, for your own peace and healing.

2. Guilt

When you are not able to let go of guilt, you will only sabotage your own success. You will hold yourself back from your own happiness. It is not that we shouldn’t do anything to make up for our mistakes. In fact, that’s what we should do! We should do all we can to ask forgiveness, to make up for our sins and to correct them. But then there will come a time when we too should forgive ourselves as God has forgiven us.

3. Greed

Another thing that hinders us from traveling lightly is greed. When we are so concerned with the material things that we are bound by them instead of being helped by such wealth, we become victims of our own greed. Greed is trying to get more than what you need. Greed is carrying more than what you can carry. Greed steals the time you should have spent with the people you love, because your time just couldn’t be enough to amass and hoard all the money you could get.

Travel lightly. Carry only what you need.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt. 11:29-30

If life is a journey, what do you bring with you? Having been a field examiner, I got used to packing my things and preparing for my travel. I knew how important it is to bring the things I needed in order to have a safe and enjoyable journey, not to mention to accomplish the work I set out to do!

So if life is a journey, what should we bring along the way? Let’s start by comparing the things I used to bring in my travels:

1. Maps

Maps represent guides to our journey. Without them, we’d get nowhere. The same thing with life. What kinds of guide do we have with us as we set forth in the greatest journey of all?

Our values

What we value in life helps us determine where we’re going. It helps us to avoid the things that are not important to us, and to give priority to those things we most resonate with. Do you value education? Then your map will point you to paths that will increase your knowledge and help you in your career. Do you value your family? Then you will most likely be guided towards things that will improve your relationship with people.

Our dreams

Dreams give us the sense of purpose we need in order to continue in our journey. If we have a map, dreams point to the destination we wish to arrive at. It may be as simple as getting the job you want, marrying your ideal partner, or fulfilling the mission God has given you.

2. Cash and credit cards

Cash represents the provisions you will need to have for your journey. If we have dreams, these are the resources we need to have in order to fulfill them. They represent the material wealth needed in order to physically manifest our desires.

3. A rosary

A rosary represents prayer. It represents the spiritual resources we need in order to have a meaningful journey. This is our Higher Source of wisdom and of strength when we feel weak or unable to carry on.

4. My iPod

I have my favorite music and videos in my iPod. Whenever I feel bored, I just listen to a song or to and I’m back on track! Songs represent the needed positive thinking and sense of humor we should carry with us in our life’s journey. Smile a little. It could greatly make your burdens lighter and help you in focusing back to your mission.

5. My camera

I love taking pictures when I travel! It’s like taking a piece of your journey back with you and savoring it again and again. A camera represents our memory of the journey we make. What kinds of pictures are we taking? Are these the kinds of pictures we’d like to take with us when we go home?

6. My mobile phone

One of the important things I bring with me in my travels is my cellular phone. I use it to stay in touch with family and friends wherever I may go. Keeping in touch. That’s one thing we could do to make our journeys happier and worthwhile. If we could bring our friends with us, then better!

Life is a great journey. But don’t forget to bring along some things to make it more meaningful and joyful along the way!

Wherever you are in your life’s journey, remember that it’s not how fast you travel that counts. What truly matters is how you spend the time given you. Why be in such a hurry? Where are you headed to anyways? There will always be mountains to climb and seas to cross. There will always be dreams to dream and stars to reach.

So spend some time savoring the moment just where you are. Are you with your family? Then give them your undivided attention. Are you playing a game with friends? Then be in that moment and really have fun!

You can’t always look back, nor can you always look ahead. You will miss so much along the way if you do that. It’s not how fast you travel, it’s not who gets there first. It’s the memories you will make, it’s the love you will forever keep with you. Live the life you have right in that moment where you are. 😉

Here on earth, we do not receive the energies of the sun directly to nourish us, and for us to create our own food as plants do. Only plants are able to do that.

In the same way, we are not always able to receive God’s love directly. Our corruptible bodies weigh us down, and we are often fooled into believing that this world we see is all there is.

We receive God’s love through other people. We see His eyes through other people’s eyes. We feel His touch through other people’s hands.

That’s why it’s very important for us to be channels of God’s love.

Sometimes, we think as though we are failures, and there is nothing worthwhile that we can do. But what we fail to realize is that there is so much we can really do.

We can do so much as parents to our children, we can shower them with a Godly love that guides them and provides for everything they need in growing up. We can do so much as partners to our soulmates. We can love them passionately and make them feel how special they are to us, how all the world would be so different and empty without their presence. We can do so much as friends, by lending an ear or a hand to a friend in need, we make known to our companions the God who never leaves us, and who would always be with us no matter what!

Let us be channels of God’s wonderful love today.

Good people are often portrayed as weak They get bullied. They are pushed around. Bad people are able to abuse them and they don’t fight back.

Is this true? Are good people really weak? I think we really have to clarify one of the most common misconceptions about being good.

Let’s start by going back to the examples given above, where a good person is hurt but doesn’t fight back. When a person doesn’t fight back, does it necessarily mean she is good? I think not. Because a person may not fight back for several reasons, and one of which is that she may be unable to fight back – she is weak! In reality, a person may want to fight back and avenge herself, she may want to condemn the person who hurt her and really hurt that person in return. In that case, the person isn’t really good, she is just powerless to carry out her desires.

On the other hand, a person who doesn’t fight back may also be genuinely good. That person may have the power to defend herself, even to hurt the other person, but she doesn’t do it because she chooses another path. In this case, this person is good and also strong. Even if she has the power to fight back, she becomes more powerful than her natural instincts. She goes beyond her hurt. She is able to reach the path of forgiveness, self control and understanding. In fact, she has fought the urge to take vengeance so that she may not hurt other people. She is given violence, but she gives back peace. She is hurt, but she chooses the path of healing.

I truly believe that only the strong can be good. It is the weak who are often harsh and wicked. It may take a certain amount of strength to carry out one’s anger, but it takes a lot more strength to go beyond that anger and subdue it for the highest good of all.

It is easy to wallow in negativity, in anger and self-pity and bitterness. It is far more difficult to let go of one’s hurts in order to welcome the more positive things in life.

Have you ever felt a certain heaviness while allowing too much negative feelings to rule over you? On the other hand, can you still remember how light you felt when you were happy?

Negative energies are heavy and pulls us down. Positive energy is lighter and rises upwards towards heaven. It takes a certain kind of strength to resist this heavy negative force and transmute it into something pleasant and light. Be strong. Only the strong can ever truly be good.