About life – “Be…” – Youm7 – 31/7/2016

   I mentioned in the former article reasons for confusion and hesitation in life. As we mentioned we should not let confusion interrupt our life and prevent us from living a full life. But each one of us should discover the reasons of confusion and start positively to overcome them. Here are some suggestions:

   Be cultured: Be a cultured person who is acquainted with different points of view and think deeply about matters of life. Moreover, you don’t have to be convinced with all you read, but you need to recognize and understand other points of view. A cultured person should have wide knowledge about all fields of life. This knowledge will help him understand several situations and will lessen of his confusion and hesitation.

   Be successful: Albert Einstein says “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”If man is always afraid of mistakes, he will do nothing, thus fear of mistakes leads to more mistakes and a shallow life with no significant actions or activities. Dear reader, we are all humans and make mistakes, but we should realize, change, learn from them to gain more experience in life. The only unacceptable mistake is insistence on doing the same mistake over and over again. Someone once said, “The only mistake in life is a lesson not learned”. George Bernard Shaw said, “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” Thus the biggest enemy of success isn’t failure, but fear of failure. To achieve your hopes and dreams, overcome fear of failure by resorting to learning, understanding and patience.
Be a researcher and seek information: If confusion is due to lack of information about both choices, you can search and ask people you trust to get information about decisions you want to make.

Be confident:

   Self-trust can’t be developed in a short time. But you can gradually work on enhancing it in many ways; determine your negative thoughts about yourself and replace them by positive ones. Know your talents and abilities and develop them. Remember that saying, “Your self-trust won’t be built by being right all the time, but by being unafraid to be wrong”. It needs time and effort, so be patient.
Be clear: Sit alone from time to time to reflect on your goals and the progress you make so far to achieve them lest you go astray. Begin by your current moment to fulfill your aspirations.

   Be flexible: Train yourself to be flexible while dealing with several situations lest your ship sink in the rough sea of life. Don’t stay away from people; keep some company around as happiness is in being with others and sharing life with them.

Anba Ermiah,
General Bishop& President of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center