I'd like to offer my wishes to you that 2011 might be one of the best years you've ever had. Along with these good wishes I offer my prayers for an ever deepening awareness of the inescapable inter-connectedness of all life, of the universality of pain and distress, and of the most sane response to these awarenesses - compassion, for self and for all others. Also, may these awarenesses engender a broader and deeper
realization and practice of justice in an apparently unjust world. May we come to see and to experience ourselves more fully as responsible not only for what we each say and do individually, but as having a certain human responsibility for the welfare of all, as well.
It's ironic, and sad really, even deeply troubling, that people often believe that they can achieve happiness by focusing exclusively on their own well being, thinking that this focus need have nothing to do with anyone else in the world. In my work I see people who are in distress of one kind or another, and these people naturally want relief from their distress. It may or may not surprise you to know that whatever the nature of the distress you, or someone else might be experiencing, their is (almost?) always a common element. That element is about relationship. This is true to such an extent that some people go to the extremes of total, or nearly total avoidance of other people in order to try to diminish or eliminate their distress. Others of course go to the other extreme of seemingly limitless and indiscriminate interactions with so many people that a true sense of order is impossible, this also in an attempt to control and/or avoid their own distress.
What both groups of people, and many people in the middle zones as well, fail to see or to understand or to value, is the inescapability of relationship, even if it is "only" the relationship one has with oneself. In the colloquial formula, wherever you go, there you are.
For 2011, may we all come to see, to understand, and to value, the incomparable richness of, and the inevitably present nature of relationship, and may we all come to understand that the only sane, rewarding, viable, sustainable, life affirming, happiness promoting approach to all relationship is one of love and compassion, in the strongest and most liberating meanings of these words.
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