The Chinese have a saying, “May you live in
interesting times.” It’s supposed to be both a blessing and a curse. A
blessing, I suppose, because at least you’ll never be bored. A curse, perhaps,
because you will always need to be alert to both dangers as well as change – no
matter how positive those changes might be.
I heard another saying on the radio yesterday, but I
didn’t catch where it originated. Maybe Russia. Anyway, it goes something like
this: “May you get the life you want.” Again, the idea behind the saying is
that it can be both a blessing and a curse. If we are in charge of our lives,
then we need to be careful, very careful about what we want. For as the
world-famous philosophers The Pussycat
Dolls remind us, “Be careful what you want ‘cause you just might get it.”
This reminds me of one final saying, which I’ve
always assumed to be taken solely as a blessing: “My cup runs over.” That’s
from Psalms 23:5, and yes, it’s about definitely about blessings. But on a
literal level, who likes it when a cup overflows? The first thing you have to
do is clean up the mess, right? In other words, you can even have too many
blessings – or at the very least, you need to invest in a larger cup.
Take stock of your life. Do you live in interesting
times? Do you have the life that you want? Does your cup run over? For me
personally, I would answer yes to all three questions. Even so, life remains
challenging, stressful, and at times, a bit overwhelming. I’m glad for my
blessings, but I’m also still trying to figure out how to handle the costs
involved.
How do you deal with blessings?
“Why has God given
me such magnificent talent? It is a curse as well as a great blessing.” –
Albrecht Durer
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