The third chapter in the book Mastering Life…is The Most Pleasant Life Anyone Can Live. My first reaction to this was “Who wants pleasant?” Everyone wants action, thrills, memories, experiences, things, stuff… Pleasant reminds me of Mount Pleasant where my Great Aunt lived; she made it to 100 and was still mainly living on her own at that point, so maybe “pleasant” isn’t so bad after all.
This little piece from a few weeks back doesn’t seem very pleasant.
Grasping for Progress
Tropical Storm Beta is providing up with much needed rain. It provided the girls with a day off from school. That made my day a little different from normal. Here is hoping school is open tomorrow.
I got to talk on the phone to an old friend today. It was good to talk to him. Earlier in the week, another friend realized we had known each other for 24 years. Not quite the 34 of the one I got to talk to today, but still a pretty good while.
My shoulder hurts. Has so for years and I should go to the doctor. My knee hurts. Has so for weeks and years so I should go to the doctor. I do not want to have surgery and I do not want to do rehab. I do not want to exercise either, but I want to be able to play basketball. Apparently, I do not want to play bad enough. My old friend says I should get to it.
About 11 years ago, my new friend (relatively speaking) and I agreed to get in shape. When little d was born, I was in the best shape I had been in since I quit playing basketball. My new friend kept going and is doing marathons and triathlons and watches what he eats and all that. Somewhere along the way, my body revolted and by the time we corralled it I was not in good shape anymore. I exercise some, I eat right some, but I make little progress and lose it quickly.
I can ride my bike for an hour pretty hard, but sometimes I can barely walk to the mailbox at the end of the street.
Some where between then and now, I asked myself “Self…” Not really, just trying to be funny, but I did question if I was a pleasant person to be around. This was of course before I read the chapter on a pleasant life. I found that the very next conversation I had started off with a problem I had. It reminded me that maybe not everyone wants to hear my problems.
The basis for the most pleasant life anyone can live is about choosing what we are doing. Its not “live like we were dying” but live like we have a purpose. The book says God made us with a purpose, a passion, a peace, and a poise in His image. We are not to live aimlessly as if we had not a care in the world or in a panic as if everything is happening to us.
As we noted in the last chapter, we can only live in one day increments and the best path for a pleasant day is to start it in prayer asking God what plan He has for us this particular day. (My mind tells me this is why the Lord’s prayer has “give us this day our daily bread” in it. I try to start my day with that particular prayer each day.) We are to live as if today is not the last day of our lives but as the most important day of our lives and follow Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”
A friend told me yesterday that in general most people do not care what we think. The book says “the world around us has a subjective, temporary sense of purpose.” These are the people who do not care what we think, and we “know instinctively that there is something wrong with” the way these people live their lives. They live not understanding that as Micah 6:14 begins “No matter how much you get, it will never be enough.”
My friend yesterday followed with the caveat what that there are a few people who really do care what we think. We can get off this worldly track of more, we can align our lives to God’s clock, “we can embrace the privilege of living a heaven-driven life”. In general, our purpose is to find those people who do care what we think, even if it is just for a moment, and be a light in their life. The author points to a roommate who “told me how Christ has totally changed his life.” That is our role model, to share Christ, to share His impact on us, and to live a pleasant life where success is measured in walking with God and not with the number of our social media likes or the amount of memories of thrills we gather.
So go out and capture this pleasant life that God intended for you to have and Walk with HIm, doing His business, just this one day, and make it important and it will be pleasant.
(Note: since I am not trying to make money from this, yet am sharing from a book, I have left some quotes and notes out to make the piece flow and have not follow the non-plagiarizing rules that the book follows so well.)