From: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org (eda-thoughts-digest) To: eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Subject: eda-thoughts-digest V1 #107 Reply-To: eda-thoughts@smoe.org Sender: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk eda-thoughts-digest Saturday, August 8 1998 Volume 01 : Number 107 Today's Subjects: ----------------- ET: the prince of tides [kara garbe ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 22:05:16 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) From: kara garbe Subject: ET: the prince of tides i just finished the prince of tides by pat conroy yesterday. it's one of the best books, if not the best, that i've ever read. something really hit me as i finished this book yesterday, something that made me laugh out loud and smile for the first time in weeks in a smile that was truly happy, a happiness that touches that chord of peace deep inside. i just felt like for much of my life i have been searching - looking to the future for something that would be the amazing moment where i could say, "this made all the difference. at this time i was finally happy and complete. at this time i took control of my life." i thought there was some magic key to happiness that i had yet to find... and so i've always thought of myself as a searcher, always looking for more and trying to dig deeper into everything - myself, other people, life... all those elusive truths that i thought i could find and make my life shiny and happy. and i always had hope that i could, and i thought that guaranteed me success in my quest. but yesterday, finishing this book, i realized how wrong i was. it hit me in one of those images that's comprised of feelings, when everything just snaps into place and you're granted a vision that's so clear and amazing, beautiful in its simplicity and clarity, that it makes you feel like you're a small child sneaking a peek through a keyhole into a room that you weren't even supposed to know existed, much less see firsthand. and then life, because it's given you this moment of such clarity, never again allows you to see it in such perfection, and it becomes lost to you if you don't take the steps to preserve it, because to see such a gift is an opportunity that you have to learn not to squander... but i'm getting away from myself. i'd always had hope, but i realized that hope isn't a force that changes your life. hope is a force for procastination, a tool for the scared. hope is something that is always tomorrow, always in the future, and always giving you small escapes from your unhappiness, but in the end leaving you back with your pain. hope flitters in and out of your life alternately giving you optimism and despair, not allowing you the time to adjust to either, leaving you caught painfully between heaven and hell. hope is what i had always had, and what had always left me empty and lacking. i saw with clarity the fine line between inaction and action, that i can only relate in words as the line between hope and faith. faith is the force of change. faith is what not only gives you hope for the future, but gives you belief in today. faith is belief in yourself, not in a distant event that will transform your life and give you everything that you have always wanted. faith is what gives you happiness in the present. faith is what makes you see the strength within yourself, the strength to overcome whatever you face. faith is the utter knowledge and certainty that you are a survivor, and that you are only a victim for as long as you choose to be. hope tells you that one day you will escape the forces that make you a victim, while faith is the knowledge and understanding that that right now, you don't have to be a victim -- you are free. you are free to be in control of your life, to live the way you want to live, and most importantly, to be happy. you have it all inside of you. you just have to see it. _____________________________________________________ "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ End of eda-thoughts-digest V1 #107 **********************************