Look, everybody else in America has already been to Prague, what’s the big deal if you send one extra? I’m sorry, you see I’ve been needing to go there for a long time, now. I mean there’s Czech and Slovakia, and the big Jewish cemetery, and the opera house… maybe that’s Vienna where the opera house is, but that’s nearby, and given the opportunity, I’d hit Vienna, too. Hell, I’d do all of Europe, given the chance. I can imagine Jane and some Praguean idiot dancing the night away… horrible image. And the coffee, see, all I know is American coffee, and the beer, and whatever is good over there. It’s gotta all be better over there. Nothing I eat has any taste. It’s been such a strange time. And what if I was there now, how would things be different? Isn’t there a big bridge with statues on it? I seem to remember that from a history class. And Jane and some guy kissing on the bridge in public. No, it’s Jane and some Czech writer. Image kills me… Just great. This is so frustrating. I’m terrible at conflict. I hate it. And if I’d imagined this problem while falling asleep one night I don’t think I would have spoken up to you. Even in my fantasy life, I just would’ve accepted it. That’s who I am. But today, I have to go. I have to. And when I tell people about this in the future, I know that, you know, it’ll be the time that I went. And I know when I review this whole episode in my head I’m not gonna know what I did or why I did it. I think they’ve done something with the real Grover. But it’ll make a good story of my young adult life. You know, the time I chose to go to Prague. I’ll look back on it and I won’t believe that I actually went, you know. I went away. So let me go. I have to, I need - just put me on the plane. Let me go.
Movie: Kicking and Screaming
Recovery is facing and embracing all the pain in our lives, so that we will gain maximum growth; learning lessons, gaining power, and looking for ways to help others do the same.
Book: The Life Model
If a person in recovevery (from emotional/spiritual traumas) is not empowered by joy, it may be impossible to face the pain that is part of recovery.
Book: The Life Model
Joyce, I am more convinced every day that a great portion of our adult effort is invested in the quest for that which was unreachable in childhood. signed, Dr. James Dobson.
Book: Irregular People
To a child, nothing seemed more stupid in adults than their inability to come to grips with the fact that people grew. Unfathomably moronic seemed the aunt or grandpapa who exclaimed “You have grown!” at each reunion.
Book: The Confusion
As one goes through it, one sees that the gate one went through was the self that went through it…
I may not be where I want to be, But thank God I’m not where I used to be.
The seed that is to grow must lose itself as seed; And they that creep may graduate through chrysalis to wings. Will you then, O mortal, cling to husks which falsely seem to you the self?
Book:
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!
But what is the task of a grower? My Father wrote another Age, but I see that the tree is not a place, but a people — the heart of a people. That is what must grow.
Video game: Myst V: End of Ages
Little seedlings never flourish in the soil they have been given, be it ever so excellent, if they are continually pulled up to see if the roots are grateful yet
The self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.