Everyone has experienced disappointment in life. It is the “measure of a man” in how he responds to such an event. The concept of the “heart” has a lot of cachet in English. Historically, the heart was seen as the center of a person’s being: one’s moral character or essence. Many times the concept was seen in political situations when a person’s body and heart were actually buried separately. One of the more famous is Marshal Pilsudski of the Second Polish Republic. (1) His heart is buried in Vilnius, now part of Lithuania and his body is buried in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, Poland. Here are a few examples of “heart” in common usage:
i)An aching heart: a feeling of sadness that one has when love has been lost or has faded.
The young woman spent the weekend alone with her aching heart.
ii) After one’s own heart: something that agrees with your own feelings, interests or ideas.
My new supervisor loves to go fishing. He is a man after my own heart.
iii) To break someone’s heart: to make someone feel sad or hopeless (usually because of love or a similar loss).
It broke my heart to see the sadness of the boy who had recently lost his dog.
iv) Close to someone’s heart: an idea or concept that is important to you and that you care about.
The plan to improve the downtown area is very close to the mayor’s heart.
v) Cross my heart and hope to die: to “double” promise what you say is true (often used by children).
I promise that I will meet you tomorrow: cross my heart and hope to die.
vi) To do something in a heartbeat: to do something almost immediately, if you have the opportunity.
I will change jobs in a heartbeat, if I have the chance.
vii) To find it in your heart: to have the courage or compassion to do something
I could not find it in my heart to tell the young woman that she could not continue to work at our company.
viii) To follow your heart: to act according to one’s feelings.
The boy followed his heart and decided to study music instead of medicine.
ix) From the bottom of my heart: with a great feeling of sincerity.
The girl thanked the man from the bottom of her heart for saving her dog`s life.
x) To have a big heart or a heart of gold: to be very kind or generous or helpful.
The man has a big heart and he will always try to help other people.
My grandmother has a heart of gold and she is always willing to help a stranger.
xi) With all your heart and soul: with all of one’s energy or with all of one’s efforts.
The girl loved her boyfriend with all her heart and soul.
My friend is putting his heart and soul into his new job. (2)
On a serious note: the streets are filled with individuals who, upon suffering trauma in life, use this as an excuse to acquiesce and surrender to mediocrity: the good-enough job, the good-enough relationship and thus the good-enough life. It is far easier to accept failure than to strive for success. This deeply ties into our concept of wage slavery. Many young people are shocked when they first enter the job market. They have been promised that the result of studying diligently is a “good” job. As first-hand experience will tell us: this is a total lie. A good job does not exist because “a job,” by definition, means that you must sell your time for money: a form of prostitution. The soul knows this and suffers the consequences of an inauthentic life, to paraphrase the Existentialists. (3) The only solution is to eschew the accepted model and to “strike out on your own.” This means that the size of your salary must be second, or third, to the acquisition of knowledge. This financially underpaid experience will take at least 10,000 hours—a minimum of five years of work. Then, given that you have been an assiduous apprentice, you will enter into the rarified world of expertise. Here, you enter a place of freedom. Whatever happens to you in your life, wherever you go, you will be free. To listen to Confucius: “Do what you love and you will never work again.”
The great poet, writer and artist, Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), leaves us with a thought: Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms from-+ those who work with joy
A small joke: John was a clever and precocious child. He was greatly admired by his mother and father for his intelligence. One day his uncle Fred came for dinner. After the meal, John’s father had to quickly return to the office and his mother had to complete some household chores. John was thus left alone with his uncle. After a brief conversation, the boy excused himself and said that he wanted to go and play ball with God in the garden. His uncle was not at all impressed by his nephew’s personality. “How do you know that you are playing with God?” he asked laconically. “That’s easy,” the boy dismissively replied. “When I throw the ball up in the air, he throws it back.”
This week, please ask yourself if your heart is really into your life?
Every day look for something magical and beautiful.
Quote: It is easy to lose heart when faced with adversity, it is much, much more difficult to “dust yourself off” and see your dreams through to their conclusion.
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