What they mean to me
I found the idea of Office Hours for Life most inspiring. I do believe that life is, in many ways, analogous to school. (Thank goodness that education is free and that the lessons never cease!) I've also come to believe that when one is a student, all of creation is a teacher. All it takes is an openness to learn.
My office hours for others take place in an arbitrary, unscheduled manner, chiefly on-demand. Somewhere along the line I realized that giving was indeed a privilege, and if ever I am able to realize a chance to give of myself to a suffering soul, I grab the opportunity with both hands and do all I can to give without limits or restraint.
While this may sound selfish, I do firmly believe that office hours for oneself are more critical still. For me, these take form chiefly through the medium of writing or blogging. The entangled threads within are gradually expressed and ironed out with their articulation. The more I inquire, the more I inquire, and intermediate writings help towards the disentanglement. This activity, meditative in nature and instructive to no small degree, is what helps me slowly, gradually make sense of my inner self. And when I am able to do this more and more, I find that I am also able to make greater room within to understand others better as well. After all, if I am better able to understand the cause of suffering within, is it not natural that I will be better able to understand the causes of suffering in others as well? We are all fundamentally the same, after all.
And while the writing may take place in solitude, this is by no means a solitary experience in entirety. As I write, I reach out to the thriving world out there - the named and the nameless. I pray that the drops of clarity in my world bring a drop of clarity to another soul, if only occasionally. And whenever they do, I feel that my writing effort has been rewarded ten-fold. I also find that certain thoughts incite responses from others that lead to greater inspiration, and so on.
So that's my story. I'd love to hear yours :).
My office hours for others take place in an arbitrary, unscheduled manner, chiefly on-demand. Somewhere along the line I realized that giving was indeed a privilege, and if ever I am able to realize a chance to give of myself to a suffering soul, I grab the opportunity with both hands and do all I can to give without limits or restraint.
While this may sound selfish, I do firmly believe that office hours for oneself are more critical still. For me, these take form chiefly through the medium of writing or blogging. The entangled threads within are gradually expressed and ironed out with their articulation. The more I inquire, the more I inquire, and intermediate writings help towards the disentanglement. This activity, meditative in nature and instructive to no small degree, is what helps me slowly, gradually make sense of my inner self. And when I am able to do this more and more, I find that I am also able to make greater room within to understand others better as well. After all, if I am better able to understand the cause of suffering within, is it not natural that I will be better able to understand the causes of suffering in others as well? We are all fundamentally the same, after all.
And while the writing may take place in solitude, this is by no means a solitary experience in entirety. As I write, I reach out to the thriving world out there - the named and the nameless. I pray that the drops of clarity in my world bring a drop of clarity to another soul, if only occasionally. And whenever they do, I feel that my writing effort has been rewarded ten-fold. I also find that certain thoughts incite responses from others that lead to greater inspiration, and so on.
So that's my story. I'd love to hear yours :).
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Very inspiring post! I offered office hours today for someone who was giving up on a future - by helping this person write a better resume. It seemed amazing that what I have come to take for granted is something that I had to learn over time, and more important, I learned that I had forgotten the learning process and the need to have patience.
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