Daily Meditation: Saturday, February 15, 2014

Ambitions - when you have achieved them, will you measure up to them?

02/15/2014

Everyone harbours ambitions, dreams – it’s natural. But if they manage to achieve them, will they be equal to the situation? That is also something to consider. For example, a boy may dream of marrying a ravishing girl he has met. After all sorts of incidents – for he’s not the only one who has fallen in love with her! – his dream comes true. On the face of it, this is wonderful. But as he lacks wisdom and control, he is plagued by suspicion and jealousy… He keeps an eye on his wife, and each time anyone approaches her he imagines she is cheating on him, to the point where one day, having gone completely mad, he murders her and ends up in prison. This little story is an example, in a very simplified form of course, of the risks we run when we desperately try to achieve our desires without knowing ourselves well and without having worked on self-control and self-mastery. If you want to marry the most beautiful girl in the world, or gain a ministerial post or be elected president, or if you want to become a celebrity or win the jackpot on the national lottery, and so on, it is not impossible to achieve. But how long will your happiness at your success last? Already, the following day, problems arise. And will you have enough strength of character then to confront them?