ending and beginning

Oh, sometimes, I simply feel that this life is far too weighty for me. Every moment, as a beginning and an end...

Robert Frost says, "You're searching, Joe, for things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings -- there are no such things. There are only middles."

And I suppose that in this middle moment, I am feeling an ending. (Is that allowed?) I am feeling rather sad with it.

Thomas Merton says, "We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves."

If you remember something like that, then in each moment you are becoming more or less yourself through the choices you make. And if you think that there are no choices, then your choices are being made without your even noticing. That's how you end up living a plain and uninspired life.

Henry David Thoreau says, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."

And so as you may be rolling along through your days, as I roll along through mine, you might try to think about the things that are worth changing -- the things that make you more yourself. Because as Merton says, "For me to be a saint means to be myself."