Comments on: Doing What You Want

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:14:25 +0000

This post made me want to write a comment at once, but fear prevented words from flowing out for almost three weeks. On the one hand, it’s such a small thing to type a few lines and post a comment. On the other hand, sharing thoughts or feelings really makes me feel vulnerable. Thus, fear is helping me to protect myself. At the same time, it is limiting my thoughts, actions, and feelings. As I understand it, having power means to be responsible, to really see others. I am very much afraid of not being able to carry that.

By: Amy

Amy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:15:44 +0000

A challenge for me is reconciling my desires that appear to conflict with one another. Is it possible to have/do/be everything I want? Simultaneously?

By: Daniel Doen Silberberg

Daniel Doen Silberberg — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:50:01 +0000

Thank you for these wonderful, insightful comments. I feel like what I was getting at was really understood. Lets keep going together. Lost Coin is both a teaching and a collaborative endeavor. PLease make it your own.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:56:49 +0000

I agree that ultimately choosing change… towards personal empowerment… is necessary for my own happiness. I also like to think that this choice ought to ultimately assist towards others’ empowerment. At times this feels somewhat self aggrandizing, and in practice it is hard to come to terms with the effects of my efforts, at least in the short term. It takes some humility in practice or, rather, it will be reveal that humility and awareness of both self and others is necessary in order to effect that change both for self and in one’s external environment. I have been recently observing all of this particularly in my place of work. Even when I feel I am listening to everyone, and aiming to act with understanding of my own and others interactions and reactions, I see that efforts towards change and positivity is not necessarily welcome, even when folks are miserable in their situation and often by their own admission. It is humorous even to see how the potential for change can seem both simple and yet monumental.

Realizing that I have made choices to be where I am, and that I do have power to improve my outlook and environment, I am learning to be patient with myself and others, to remain open, not inherently ‘right’ and, occasionally, simultaneously ok with the struggle and, with humor, with myself wishing that others would more easily see it my way. The inherent challenge in this really does feel a golden opportunity for life and growth.

By: Joel

Joel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:37:10 +0000

I really like the message here, and what first comes to mind is Nelson Mandela’s famous statement… how we “fear our own greatness more than failure”. For much of my adult life there have been people telling me how much I am capable of doing, if I’d just do it. As much as I’ve changed inwardly over the years, the necessary leap of faith has not yet happened… I cannot help but think that something terrible will happen if I act on my instincts do what really I want… maybe because it would be more believable if I hadn’t lived for so long with the assumption that for this to happen would be “just too good to be true”. Do I really deserve it? In a world where there is so much war, starvation and death, and every imaginable atrocity going on every day, is it realistic to think that I could actually be happy and make the needed changes? Do I even deserve it? If it is possible then there cannot be even a shread of doubt or fear… total courage, without any second thoughts. I wonder if we can only reach this bold place gradually or if it must come in an instantaneous flash of sudden insight?