July 14Failing Judgment
Filled is Life's goblet to the brim; / And though my eyes with tears are dim, / I see its sparkling bubbles swim, / And chant a melancholy hymn / With solemn voice and slow. // … And he who has not learned to know / How false its sparkling bubbles show, / How bitter are the drops of woe, / With which its brim may overflow, / He has not learned to live.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—“The Goblet of Life,” The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1845)
Perhaps today's reading could be summed briefly as this: we all have our part to play and we will experience our share of both joy and sorrow.
Accepting things as they are without judgment is one of life's greatest challenges. If you were to assess the one characteristic that the happiest people in the world share, it might be this:
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
Lao Tzu
Challenge Question
- When's the last time you placed yourself squarely in someone else's shoes?
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