Email: Finding serenity [MG]

It seems clear that your job offers you more than the usual amount of stress, and I submit that your ability to tolerate this over time has limits (as well as costs). Perhaps you should work on expanding your options.

I'm not given to sloughing off and doing nothing myself (though I do when I need to), but given my experience and impressions, lounging on a beach or in a hammock with a mai tai or a piña colada in hand seems like the ideal picture too.

Relaxation and contentment are absolutely up to the individual! In fact, that is probably the entire point of my life, esp. since I am a White or Serenity temperament. (Maybe I should teach finding serenity?) I seek challenge and I eat stress for breakfast, but I couldn't do it if I wasn't maintaining an inner calm and a steadfast spirit. I similarly learned in high school that "doing something about it" is the simplest path toward happiness; melancholy comes from passively allowing others to determine one's direction in life. Nor do we want to dwell on negative matters that are "beneath our attention"; in fact, if someone has found a "hot button" we didn't know we had, it is incumbent upon us to learn how to master it, and not to allow it to master us.

Sometimes just letting go and moving on (surrendering our inner need to understand and find closure) is the best thing we can do. Reflecting on a matter is only helpful if we are learning something about it or ourselves that help us move on. In the end, whether we understand or do not understand a matter, the important thing is that we do move on with the rest of our lives.

I think some people are more reflective and conscientious about learning their lessons from the Lord than others are. These tend to be the truly spiritual (not just religious) types. I get the idea you don't need many "wakeup calls" from the Lord; by the time others are waking up spiritually, you may already have finished making breakfast in bed. Just remember that St. Paul didn't know what he was going to do "when he was a grownup" until a very late age, either. Or Grandma Moses, for that matter.

I think it's hard to pray for getting a specific job (or mate). It's hard to pray objectively about such things, so I try to learn more practical lessons in those areas. (Hint to those who seek a job or a date: Maybe the Lord is telling you to use breath mints!) My spiritual version of Occam's Razor is this: All things being equal, a natural solution is likely more needful than a supernatural one.

Speaking of my recent experience: When the door opens, you'll know it -- and it may even be a floodgate.