Caux Day Four

DON'T SWEAT THE DETAILS

I am clear about the purpose of my life – act with love and kindness. I knew this direction at a very early age. How well I practiced it is open to question. At times I feel I was capable of carrying out the task well, at others I doubted my, or anyone else’s ability to do so. No matter. At long last I am certain that the purpose of my life is to treat all things with love and kindness. Simple to say but words cannot convey its true meaning or the difficulty I have in following this simple rule.

Oddly, as this direction has become clearer, I find that my knowledge of precisely HOW I should act with love and kindness has become less clear. At one time I believed it was important to make sure people had the correct view of God and that my role was to explain God’s purpose to them. Later I felt that my duty was to help others to become free of alcohol. Later still I felt that it was my role to marry and have a family. At each of these times I spent much time and effort figuring out the details of how to accomplish the task in front of me only to later find that the details were not important. I knew that acting with love and kindness remained critical in each situation but how I was to do this became less and less clear. In fact, the more I insisted on knowing how to act with love and kindness the less clear things became. Was it loving to “save” my daughter from her crises or was it more loving to remove myself from the situation and let her develop her own solutions? Should I dedicate my life to a particular religion or seek to be loving and kind to all religions? The amount of heat generated in these analyses was inversely proportional to amount of light shed on the subject. I was in quite a pickle.

Now I recognize that I must simply focus on the here and now. This moment, this instant, this pico-second is the only place where love and kindness exist. My past actions may be seen as less than loving and kind in the eyes of others or my own. No matter. That was then and this is now. My future actions may not prove to be loving and kind. No matter. That will be then but this is now. I will smile. I will help with the breakfast preparations. I will take care of my health. I will share love and kindness, now – in this place. I will leave the details of how to act with love and kindness tomorrow with tomorrow.