My View of "My World"

You and I see the same world. The news reports transmitted to me are detailing, illustrating, documenting, and elaborating the exact same events as those offered to you. And it just may be that it is at this point that you and I take somewhat dissimilar paths in our perceptions of our world. For, My Dear Reader, I had the epiphanal experience of learning (many years ago) that there is a place known to me now, as “My World.” My world is defined by the borders and boundaries of my personal reach. Those persons, items, properties, and events within the radius of my individual potential to touch… constitute the world that I am responsible to… and for.

Though I am certainly cognizant of global circumstances with all of their complexities and overwhelming challenges, I accept only those elements of that natural world that are available to my influence, as part of my personal world. I have chosen to live in a phenomenological world that I am intimately involved in, and can have a responsible relationship with. A world whose pain is something that I can soothe. A world whose confusions I can gently address. A world whose inhabitants I can know and be known by. A world that can reach its own sphere of influence… touching and affecting changes in worlds of its own… beyond my personal knowledge and awareness.

Hence… I do not permit myself to be caught up in the frustrations of “world events” about which I can do nothing. I do not drain my emotional resources watching the images of starving peoples whose condition I can offer no relief for. I do not engross myself in imagery of death, devastation, criminal behaviors, or political foolishness that is beyond the reach of my direct personal intervention. For I have sufficient, and more, demand for my involvement in opportunities brought daily to my physical and spiritual “doorstep” by Life. And I dare not have squandered any part of my abilities to respond to these welcome visitors. I must be prudent and disciplined in the allocation and budgeting of my individual material, physical, emotional, and spiritual stores, lest I be found wanting in providing for them. (And if, or when, some of them attempt to take advantage of or demand excess of my resources… I dismiss them with the same disciplines that allowed my initial provision for them.)

This is my view of my responsibility to life. I offer it as a perspective worthy of consideration. It is a view not of my own creation… but thankfully learned from others far wiser than myself… and now offered to you. If yours is a life of scattered and ineffectual efforts and interests that frequently fall short of accomplishing their intended good… perhaps you might consider pulling back the “borders” of your world to encompass a land of more manageable and attainable involvements. If there are lives that you cannot give full focus to and find yourself feeling a frustrated guilt for neglecting… perhaps you (and they) would be better served by scattering less of yourself to the fringes of your present world… and concentrating a greater quantity of You on a smaller patch. Your reward could be in the fruition of hopes and dreams in lives that can then go out into those more far-flung fringes where they can accomplish what you now only dream of.

I bid you “Enjoy, appreciate, honor, and embrace your immediate world.” And trust the Giver of it to you with the care of all of those interests beyond your personal reach. As a practitioner of this discipline, I heartily recommend it to you.


IMAGE through the gracious courtesy of Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com