In A Stoic Summer, I noted that “I am choosing to commence a Stoic Summer, reading some 10 books for my own Studentry.” And, I am getting there. I have posted much this past month around KNOWledge… and I am digging into Stoicism now and through July. This is not mere “interest” now. While I await the results of tests and investigate health mysteries at this time, I am focused on working towards optimal health, forging and fortifying my own sacred spaces of time and place. We live in a world that wants to pull us in many directions with all the demands, distractions and even doubts that come with them.
So, I am focusing on focus. “So long as the thoughts of an individual are scattered” we achieve no real results. We are busy with little meaningfully done. But concentrating on a single point… “wonderful will be the fruits” … indeed. In deed.
My focus is Human Together Strong… human, this human, singular… so that I can advance my work around Humans Together Strong. But, it starts within. It starts with us. We are no real and lasting good to anyone else without looking and working inward.
As it does for us all. LP Jacks said, “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” To be such (or a Student in the art of living as I prefer) we need be grounded, I humbly suggest, in this focus of who we are at best.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “So long as the thoughts of an individual are scattered he will achieve no results. But if his thinking be concentrated on a single point, wonderful will be the fruits thereof. Man cannot obtain the full force of the sunlight when it is cast upon a flat mirror. But once the sun shineth upon a concave mirror, or on a lens that is convex, all its heat will be concentrated on a single point, and that one point will burn the hottest. Thus it is necessary to focus one’s thinking on a single point, so that it will become an effective force.” An effective force for my Health and Service, hmmmmm. Indeed. In deed. My intent is to take due care of “The Barry Unit” so that I can serve my life and world ever better. Therein lie my own wondrous fruits. Insh’allah.
Barry Lewis Green, The Unity Guy with Epic Engage.
CONSIDER
Developing Leadership Character – Ivey Business Journal
“Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness. ― Anne Frank