The quote is from Epictetus, but I actually heard of it whilst watching the movie “Serendipity.” It’s one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time. That’s right; I’m a rom-com guy. Insult a wall. Anyway, Jeremy Piven (John Cusack’s best friend) shares this quote with John Cusack after divulging to him that his marriage has “died.” After John Cusack asks him what the cause of death was, Piven essentially says that the reason was due to a lack of spontaneity and faith. Cusack had been running around New York following “signs” in attempt to track down Kate Beckinsale, whom he had met long ago, but parted ways with the idea that they shall see each other again if only it was meant to be. In actuality, Cusack is being rather cruel to his fiancé, but I suppose when you know… that you know.. who you love.. you can’t deny it.
“Anger is fear, and fear is a lack of faith.” I never thought of the two words being so correlated. After all, they are two separate words for a reason, but they are ultimately one and the same. The definition of anger is “a strong feeling of displeasure, annoyance, or hostility.” I’ve always considered myself not to be angry because I don’t want to harm anybody physically or because I’m not screaming and yelling at them. However, by definition of the word, I’m quite angry at most everybody and everything. Sometimes, when I check the statistics of something I post, I become displeased with the numbers; and, alas, angry. Why am I angry? Because I am afraid. Why am I afraid? Because I have a lack of faith. A lack of faith that this will not work out; a lack of faith that maybe this natural gift of writing that I *think* I have isn’t that great of a gift. Perhaps I’m not that good at it. It is also a lack of faith that God or the Universe will not bring to fruition the success that I want the site to have.
I hate the idea of working the traditional “nine-to-five” – the idea of trading time for money. It’s something that I just flat-out reject, which is fine, I think, but that means I have to come up with an extraordinary amount of discipline and work ethic to trade productivity for success, let’s say, as opposed to trading time for money. Also, it means that I will have to be content with looking like a complete idiot (I do this every day anyway, look like an idiot) – with being thought of as foolish and stupid. “Starving artists” are always considered foolish and stupid until they are no longer starving.
What is your natural, God-given gift? How are we utilizing that gift today? Not only that, but how are we utilizing that gift to benefit others and ourselves?
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