Who am I?
Why am I different from my siblings?
What is life all about?
How do find Happiness in Life?


If you are like me, you may have asked yourself some of these questions. One of the best responses I found are contained in a book by John Powell, SJ a popular lecturer and teacher, a former professor at Loyola University. Here you may find some possible answers for your consideration. Whether or not you believe in God, there are answers in the following:

The Importance of the Family

The family is the first and most important of all the influences that affect our lives.
When we come into this world, we are living questions. We ask: Who am I? Who are these other people? What is life about? The answers are conveyed to us in the hands that hold us and the voices that speak to us.

From the beginning of life, they also have been acted out in front of us and stored in us. We cannot recall many of these messages, but they are nevertheless active in us. In a sense, the hands that held us and the voices that spoke to us as infants still hold and speak to us. We tend to model our lives on these early lessons.

The family is the principal source of the first messages we record deep inside ourselves. Some messages are good and helpful, but others may be unhealthy and painful. Unless we learn to identify and edit them, we become prisoners of our recorded messages from the past.

The second source of family influence is based on a simple fact: All experiences become memories. Even the memories we cannot actively recall continue to influence us. Parents who take time to listen to or appreciate a child are not only offering a positive experience, they are creating a positive, lifelong memory. I am sure that much of what we are is determined by our memories.

Family messages and memories are vital and lasting influences, but there is a third ‘M” that also is transmitted by our families to us—meaning. Some maintain that the quality of our lives is determined by the meaning we find in them. Finding meaning is a constant effort. If we are to grow, we must find new meaning in every new day. We must find meaning in joy and in sorrow, in education and recreation.

To find meaning in something means to find some value in it. If a person values only physical beauty, for example, life for him or her may he over at age thirty-five. We have to find a deeper meaning or we begin to die.

We have to believe that there is a purpose in our lives. God sent each of us into the world with a definite message to deliver and a special act of love to bestow on others.
Psychiatrist Carl Jung believed only religious faith and love could supply this kind of meaning. And while faith and love are really God’s gifts, God channels these graces through the faith and love of others—our families—who touch our lives.

Our parents are our first life models. If they were people of faith and love, the seeds of faith and love were planted in us. We took them on just as we took on other family traits. But if the messages, memories, and meaning in life are really family endowments, why do children of the same family often turn out so differently?

First, I suppose, because they heard different messages.

It is not what we say, but what others hear that matters. And children are notoriously poor at interpreting their parents’ messages. One child can hear love in the command to go to bed; another may conclude: ‘You don’t want me around,” It follows that if the messages are perceived differently, the experiences will be different.

It remains true that the script of our lives is written in our family relationships. Consequently, each of us must stop and reflect on the messages we are sending out.

We must investigate the memories that are shaping our lives and ask what memories we are creating in the lives of those we love. We must also ask whether we are really sharing with others the things that make life meaningful for us. Are faith and love the legacy we are leaving to those we love?

We must ask God to shape the messages our lives give to others, to let us be a positive experience and memory for them, and to deepen our faith and determination to make our lives acts of love.

We must investigate the messages, memories, and meaning that have been passed along to us, so that we may live fully and he a source of blessing to the lives we touch.

Pithy

Life is a journey. NOT a guided tour.

Some people bring happiness wherever they go.
Some people bring happiness whenever they go.

Gossip is telling or hearing something you like about someone you do not like.

Let Go or get dragged

Don’t believe everything you think.

When I first heard the saw “ if you can’t say anything good about a person don’t say anything” I was speechless.