Starter about Linux:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel
In linux, to find out the version of the operating system, type:
# uname -a
and
# cat /etc/issu
Refer to:
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=1864746
Another good command to find out which Linux Version / Build / Distribution is running:
# cat /proc/version
Refer to:
http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Unix/Linux/LINUX_DisplayVersion.shtml
Monday, March 17, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Fulton Sheen 的书 - "你" - 你幸福吗?
你幸福吗?
1944年12月3日广播电台播出
你得到了心中完美的幸福了吗? 或者你还在寻求幸福? 毫无疑问在你一生的某时某刻你获得了你相信能使你快乐的东西. 当你得到了你想要的,你快乐了吗?
还记得童年时期,你多么热切地期待着圣诞节吗? 当你吃饱了蛋糕, 手中抱满了玩具, 眼中跳跃着圣诞树上的彩光, 你觉得是多么的快乐啊!
圣 诞节终于来了,当你吃饱喝足,吹灭了最后一只圣诞蜡烛,玩具玩到不再有趣, 你爬上自己的床自言自语道,在你的内心深处,难以言喻地感到这一切还是没有达到你所期待的. 再有,你是不是曾经有过数千次这样的经历?你盼望着旅行的快乐,但是当你拖着疲惫的双脚回到家时,你承认最幸福的日子是你起程和归来的那两天.
也许你以为婚姻可以给你带来完美的幸福.即使它确实带来了某种程度的快乐,你还是承认现在你对你的伴侣的爱已经不再稀罕. 在井边的人永远不会感到口渴.
或许你想要的是财富.你得到了, 可是现在又怕失去它. 带上金马嚼不一定就是匹好马. 可能你有一种渴望成为名人的欲望. 在你真的成为知名人士之后, 却发现声誉就象是一只皮球; 一旦它开始滚起来, 人们就将它踢来踢去.
事实是: 你想要完美无缺的快乐, 但是你却得不到. 你的生活充满了一系列的失望, 震惊,和理想的破灭. 你是怎样对待这些失望的呢? 你不是变得愤世嫉俗,就是变得有宗教信仰.如果你变得愤世嫉俗, 你 会抱怨事情而不是你自身.如果你结婚了,你会说:"如果我嫁给了另外一个丈夫,或是娶了另外一个妻子,我就会幸福了." 或者你说:"如果我有了另一份工作..."; 或者,"如果我去了另一个夜总会...", 或者, "如果我住在另一个城市,我就会快乐." 总而言之,你将幸福归结为你自身以外的因素.怪不得你总是不快乐. 你在追逐海市蜃楼,直到死亡突袭到你. 但是愤世嫉俗并不解决问题, 因为在追寻享乐之中你失去了生活的喜悦. 享乐是属于身体的;喜悦是属于心灵的. 龙虾大餐可以给某些人带来享受,但是即使是最热衷龙虾的 爱好者也不会说它给他们带来了喜悦.你会很快地对享乐感到厌倦,但是你永远不会厌倦喜悦. 享乐增加到一定程度就不再是享乐;如果超越了一定的限度它还可能成为一种痛苦;例如,搔痒或饮酒.但是一个美德带来的喜悦,或是首次接受圣餐的喜悦, 或是发现一个真理带来的喜悦, 永远不会转变为痛苦.
进一步而言, 你有没有注意到, 随着你寻求享乐的欲望增加,从享乐中获取的满足感随之减少? 你是否承认以回报递减法则为基础的人生哲学是正确的?
你觉得你正在享受大好时光; 但是时间真的是世界上对幸福的最大障碍, 不仅是因为它使你不停地寻欢作乐, 而且除非你对时光的流逝毫无意识, 否则你将永远不会快乐! 你越多看时钟, 你的快乐感就越少! 你越沉浸于享乐,你就对时间流失的意识越淡薄. 你说, "时间象任何事一样地流逝." 因此,或许你的幸福与永恒有所关联! 这样看来对失望的另一种反应就更加合理. 它是以这样的提问为起始的: "我为什么失望?"; 随之再问, "我怎样避免它?"
你为什么失望? 因为你的欲望同现实有着巨大的差距. 你的灵魂有某种无限的性质,因为它是属于精神的. 但是你的身体, 就象你周围的世界, 是物质的,有限的, "cabined, cribbed, confined." 你可以想象一座金山, 但是你永远也不会亲眼见到. 同样,你渴望得到一些尘世的享受, 或是地位, 或是生活条件, 可是你一旦得到它, 你就开始感到你的理想和现实有着巨大的差距. 每一个世间的理想都因拥有而迷失. 你的理想中物质的成份越多, 失望就越大; 精神的成份越多, 幻想破灭就越小.
发现了你失望的原因, 你的下一步是试图完全避免失望. 你问自己: "我最渴望的到底是什么?" 你想要最完美的生命, 最完美的真理, 最完美的爱. 任何欠缺无限的东西都无法满足你.而要求你满足于不足就等于摧毁你的本性. 你要生命, 不是仅多两年,而是永远; 你要知道所有的真理, 不只是关于经济的真理, 而是超于历史. 你也要无止境的爱. 所有的爱情诗句都是一种哭痛, 哀怨, 悲叹. 越是纯粹,越加动人; 越是超越尘世, 越发悲恸.
With your feet on earth, you dream of heaven; creature of time, you despise it; flower of a day, you seek to eternalize yourself. Why do you want Life, Truth, Love, unless you were made for them? How could you enjoy the fractions unless there were a whole? Where do they come from? Where is the source of light in the city street at noon? Not under autos, buses, nor the feet of trampling throngs, because their light is mingled with darkness. If you are to find the source of light you must go out to something that has no admixture of darkness or shadow, namely, to pure light, which is the sun. In like manner, if you are to find the source of Life, Truth, and Love, you must go out to a life that is not mingled with its shadow, death; to a Truth not mingled with its shadow, error; and to a Love not mingle with its shadow, hate. You go out to something that is Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love, and that is the definition of God. And the reason you have been disappointed is because you have not yet found Him!
It is God you are looking for. Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune, or high position, or fame, or sufficient vitamins; it is due not to a want of something outside you, but to a want of something inside you. You cannot satisfy a soul with husks! If the sun could speak, it would say that it was happy when shining; if a pencil could speak it would say that it was happy when writing --- for these were the purposes for which they were made. You were made for perfect happiness. That is your purpose. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you.
But have you noticed that when you realize you were made for Perfect Happiness, how much less disappointing the pleasures of earth become? You cease expecting to get silk purses out of sows' ears. Once you realize that God is your end, you are not disappointed, for you put no more hope in things than they can bear. You cease looking for first-rate joys where there are only tenth-rate pleasures.
You begin to see that friendship, the joys of marriage, the thrill of possession, the sunset and the evening star, masterpieces of art and music, the gold and silver of earth, the industries and the comforts of life, are all gifts of God. He dropped them on the roadway of life, to remind you that if these are so beautiful, then what must be Beauty! He intended them to be bridges to cross over to Him. After enjoying the good things of life you were to say: "If the spark of human love is so bright then what must be the Flame!"
Unfortunately, many become so enamored of the gifts the great Giver of Live has drooped on the roadway of life that they build their cities around the gift, and forget the Giver; and when the gifts, out of loyalty to their Maker, fail to give them perfect happiness, they rebel against God and become cynical and disillusioned.
Change your entire point of view! Life is not a mockery. Disappointments are merely markers on the road of life, saying: "Perfect happiness is not here." Though your passions may have been satisfied, you were never satisfied, because while your passions can find satisfaction in this world, you can not. Start with your own insufficiency and begin a search for perfection. Begin with your own emptiness and seek Him who can fill it.
Look at your heart! It tells the story of why you were made. It is not perfect in shape and contour, like a Valentine Heart. There seems to be a small piece missing out of the side of every human heart. That may be to symbolize a piece that was torn out of the Heart of Christ which embraced all humanity on the Cross. But I think the real meaning is that when God made your human heart, He found it so good and so lovable that He kept a small sample of it in heaven. He sent the rest of it into this world to enjoy His gifts, and to use them as stepping stones back to Him, but to be ever mindful that you can never love anything in this world with your whole heart because you have not a whole heart with which to love. In Order to love anyone with your whole heart, in order to be really peaceful, in order to be really wholehearted, you must go back again to God to recover the piece He has been keeping for you from all eternity!
God bless you.
1944年12月3日广播电台播出
你得到了心中完美的幸福了吗? 或者你还在寻求幸福? 毫无疑问在你一生的某时某刻你获得了你相信能使你快乐的东西. 当你得到了你想要的,你快乐了吗?
还记得童年时期,你多么热切地期待着圣诞节吗? 当你吃饱了蛋糕, 手中抱满了玩具, 眼中跳跃着圣诞树上的彩光, 你觉得是多么的快乐啊!
圣 诞节终于来了,当你吃饱喝足,吹灭了最后一只圣诞蜡烛,玩具玩到不再有趣, 你爬上自己的床自言自语道,在你的内心深处,难以言喻地感到这一切还是没有达到你所期待的. 再有,你是不是曾经有过数千次这样的经历?你盼望着旅行的快乐,但是当你拖着疲惫的双脚回到家时,你承认最幸福的日子是你起程和归来的那两天.
也许你以为婚姻可以给你带来完美的幸福.即使它确实带来了某种程度的快乐,你还是承认现在你对你的伴侣的爱已经不再稀罕. 在井边的人永远不会感到口渴.
或许你想要的是财富.你得到了, 可是现在又怕失去它. 带上金马嚼不一定就是匹好马. 可能你有一种渴望成为名人的欲望. 在你真的成为知名人士之后, 却发现声誉就象是一只皮球; 一旦它开始滚起来, 人们就将它踢来踢去.
事实是: 你想要完美无缺的快乐, 但是你却得不到. 你的生活充满了一系列的失望, 震惊,和理想的破灭. 你是怎样对待这些失望的呢? 你不是变得愤世嫉俗,就是变得有宗教信仰.如果你变得愤世嫉俗, 你 会抱怨事情而不是你自身.如果你结婚了,你会说:"如果我嫁给了另外一个丈夫,或是娶了另外一个妻子,我就会幸福了." 或者你说:"如果我有了另一份工作..."; 或者,"如果我去了另一个夜总会...", 或者, "如果我住在另一个城市,我就会快乐." 总而言之,你将幸福归结为你自身以外的因素.怪不得你总是不快乐. 你在追逐海市蜃楼,直到死亡突袭到你. 但是愤世嫉俗并不解决问题, 因为在追寻享乐之中你失去了生活的喜悦. 享乐是属于身体的;喜悦是属于心灵的. 龙虾大餐可以给某些人带来享受,但是即使是最热衷龙虾的 爱好者也不会说它给他们带来了喜悦.你会很快地对享乐感到厌倦,但是你永远不会厌倦喜悦. 享乐增加到一定程度就不再是享乐;如果超越了一定的限度它还可能成为一种痛苦;例如,搔痒或饮酒.但是一个美德带来的喜悦,或是首次接受圣餐的喜悦, 或是发现一个真理带来的喜悦, 永远不会转变为痛苦.
进一步而言, 你有没有注意到, 随着你寻求享乐的欲望增加,从享乐中获取的满足感随之减少? 你是否承认以回报递减法则为基础的人生哲学是正确的?
你觉得你正在享受大好时光; 但是时间真的是世界上对幸福的最大障碍, 不仅是因为它使你不停地寻欢作乐, 而且除非你对时光的流逝毫无意识, 否则你将永远不会快乐! 你越多看时钟, 你的快乐感就越少! 你越沉浸于享乐,你就对时间流失的意识越淡薄. 你说, "时间象任何事一样地流逝." 因此,或许你的幸福与永恒有所关联! 这样看来对失望的另一种反应就更加合理. 它是以这样的提问为起始的: "我为什么失望?"; 随之再问, "我怎样避免它?"
你为什么失望? 因为你的欲望同现实有着巨大的差距. 你的灵魂有某种无限的性质,因为它是属于精神的. 但是你的身体, 就象你周围的世界, 是物质的,有限的, "cabined, cribbed, confined." 你可以想象一座金山, 但是你永远也不会亲眼见到. 同样,你渴望得到一些尘世的享受, 或是地位, 或是生活条件, 可是你一旦得到它, 你就开始感到你的理想和现实有着巨大的差距. 每一个世间的理想都因拥有而迷失. 你的理想中物质的成份越多, 失望就越大; 精神的成份越多, 幻想破灭就越小.
发现了你失望的原因, 你的下一步是试图完全避免失望. 你问自己: "我最渴望的到底是什么?" 你想要最完美的生命, 最完美的真理, 最完美的爱. 任何欠缺无限的东西都无法满足你.而要求你满足于不足就等于摧毁你的本性. 你要生命, 不是仅多两年,而是永远; 你要知道所有的真理, 不只是关于经济的真理, 而是超于历史. 你也要无止境的爱. 所有的爱情诗句都是一种哭痛, 哀怨, 悲叹. 越是纯粹,越加动人; 越是超越尘世, 越发悲恸.
With your feet on earth, you dream of heaven; creature of time, you despise it; flower of a day, you seek to eternalize yourself. Why do you want Life, Truth, Love, unless you were made for them? How could you enjoy the fractions unless there were a whole? Where do they come from? Where is the source of light in the city street at noon? Not under autos, buses, nor the feet of trampling throngs, because their light is mingled with darkness. If you are to find the source of light you must go out to something that has no admixture of darkness or shadow, namely, to pure light, which is the sun. In like manner, if you are to find the source of Life, Truth, and Love, you must go out to a life that is not mingled with its shadow, death; to a Truth not mingled with its shadow, error; and to a Love not mingle with its shadow, hate. You go out to something that is Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love, and that is the definition of God. And the reason you have been disappointed is because you have not yet found Him!
It is God you are looking for. Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune, or high position, or fame, or sufficient vitamins; it is due not to a want of something outside you, but to a want of something inside you. You cannot satisfy a soul with husks! If the sun could speak, it would say that it was happy when shining; if a pencil could speak it would say that it was happy when writing --- for these were the purposes for which they were made. You were made for perfect happiness. That is your purpose. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you.
But have you noticed that when you realize you were made for Perfect Happiness, how much less disappointing the pleasures of earth become? You cease expecting to get silk purses out of sows' ears. Once you realize that God is your end, you are not disappointed, for you put no more hope in things than they can bear. You cease looking for first-rate joys where there are only tenth-rate pleasures.
You begin to see that friendship, the joys of marriage, the thrill of possession, the sunset and the evening star, masterpieces of art and music, the gold and silver of earth, the industries and the comforts of life, are all gifts of God. He dropped them on the roadway of life, to remind you that if these are so beautiful, then what must be Beauty! He intended them to be bridges to cross over to Him. After enjoying the good things of life you were to say: "If the spark of human love is so bright then what must be the Flame!"
Unfortunately, many become so enamored of the gifts the great Giver of Live has drooped on the roadway of life that they build their cities around the gift, and forget the Giver; and when the gifts, out of loyalty to their Maker, fail to give them perfect happiness, they rebel against God and become cynical and disillusioned.
Change your entire point of view! Life is not a mockery. Disappointments are merely markers on the road of life, saying: "Perfect happiness is not here." Though your passions may have been satisfied, you were never satisfied, because while your passions can find satisfaction in this world, you can not. Start with your own insufficiency and begin a search for perfection. Begin with your own emptiness and seek Him who can fill it.
Look at your heart! It tells the story of why you were made. It is not perfect in shape and contour, like a Valentine Heart. There seems to be a small piece missing out of the side of every human heart. That may be to symbolize a piece that was torn out of the Heart of Christ which embraced all humanity on the Cross. But I think the real meaning is that when God made your human heart, He found it so good and so lovable that He kept a small sample of it in heaven. He sent the rest of it into this world to enjoy His gifts, and to use them as stepping stones back to Him, but to be ever mindful that you can never love anything in this world with your whole heart because you have not a whole heart with which to love. In Order to love anyone with your whole heart, in order to be really peaceful, in order to be really wholehearted, you must go back again to God to recover the piece He has been keeping for you from all eternity!
God bless you.
Fulton J. Sheen's Book "You" - Are You Happy?
Are You Happy?
Radio address delivered on December 3, 1944
Peace be to you!
Are you perfectly happy? Or are you still looking for happiness? There can be no doubt that at one time or another in your life you attained that which you believed would make you happy. When you got what you wanted, were you happy?
Do you remember when you were a child, how ardently you looked forward to Christmas? How happy you thought you would be, with your fill of cakes, your hands glutted with toys, and your eyes dancing with the lights on the tree!
Christmas came, and after you had eaten your fill, blown out the last Christmas candle, and played till your toys no longer amused, you climbed into your bed and said, in your own little heart of hearts, that somehow or other it did not quite come up to your expectations. And have you not lived that experience over a thousand times since? You looked forward to the joys of travel, but when your weary feet carried you home and you admitted that the two happiest days were the day you left home and the day you got back.
Perhaps it was marriage you thought which would bring you perfect happiness. Even though it did bring a measure of happiness, you admit that you now take your companion's love for granted. One is never thirsty at the border of the well.
Perhaps it was wealth you wanted. You got it, and now you are afraid of losing it. "A golden bit does not make the better horse." Maybe it was a desire to be well-known that you craved. You did become well-know only to find that reputation is like a ball; as soon as it starts rolling, men begin to kick it around.
The fact is: you want to be perfectly happy, but you are not. You life has been a series of disappointments, shocks, and disillusionments. How have you reacted to your disappointments? Either you became cynical or else you became religious. If you became cynical, you blamed things, rather than yourself. If you were married you said: "If I had another husband, or another wife, I would be happy." Or you said: "If i had another job..."; or, "If I visited another nightclub...", or, "If I were in another city, I would be happy." In every instance, you made happiness extrinsic to yourself. No wonder you are never happy. You are chasing mirages until death overtakes you. But cynicism did not work, because in seeking pleasures you missed the joys of life. Pleasure is of the body; joy is of the mind and heart. Lobster Newburg gives pleasure to certain people, but not even the most avid lobster fans would ever say that it made them joyful. You can quickly become tired of pleasures, but you never tire of joys. A pleasure can be increased to a point where it ceases to be a pleasure; it may even begin to be a pain if carried beyond a certain point; for example, tickling or drinking. But the joy of a good conscience, or the joy of a First communion, or the discovery of a truth, never turns to pain.
Furthermore, have you noticed that as your desire for pleasure increased, the satisfaction from the pleasure decreased? Do you think a philosophy of life is right that is based on the law of diminishing returns?
You think you are having a good time; but time really is the greatest obstacle in the world to happiness, not only because it makes you take pleasures successively, but also because you are never really happy until you are unconscious of the passing of time! The more you look at the clock, the less happy you are! The more you enjoy yourself, the less conscious you are of the passing of time. You say, "Time passed like everything." Maybe, therefore, your happiness has something to do with the eternal! The other reaction to disappointment is much more reasonable. It begins by asking: "Why am I disappointed?"; and then, "How can I avoid it?"
Why are you disappointed? Because of the tremendous disproportion between your desires and your realizations. Your soul has a certain infinity about it, because it is spiritual. But your body, like the world about you, is material, limited, "cabined, cribbed, confined." You can imagine a mountain of gold, but you will never see one. In like manner, you look forward to some earthly pleasure, or position, or state of life, and once you attain it you begin to feel the tremendous disproportion between the ideal you imagined and the reality you possess. Disappointment follows. Every earthly ideal is lost by being possessed. The more material your ideal, the greater the disappointment; the more spiritual it is, the less the disillusionment.
Having discovered why you are disappointed, you take the next step of trying to avoid disappointments entirely. You ask yourself: "What do I desire above all things?" You want perfect life, and perfect truth, and perfect love. Nothing short of the Infinite satisfies you, and to ask you to be satisfied with less would be to destroy your nature. You want life, not for two more years, but always; you want to know all truths, not the truths of economics alone, to the exclusion of history. You also want love without end. All the poetry of love is a cry, a moan, and a weeping. The more pure it is, the more it pleads; the more it is lifted above the earth, the more it laments.
With your feet on earth, you dream of heaven; creature of time, you despise it; flower of a day, you seek to eternalize yourself. Why do you want Life, Truth, Love, unless you were made for them? How could you enjoy the fractions unless there were a whole? Where do they come from? Where is the source of light in the city street at noon? Not under autos, buses, nor the feet of trampling throngs, because their light is mingled with darkness. If you are to find the source of light you must go out to something that has no admixture of darkness or shadow, namely, to pure light, which is the sun. In like manner, if you are to find the source of Life, Truth, and Love, you must go out to a life that is not mingled with its shadow, death; to a Truth not mingled with its shadow, error; and to a Love not mingle with its shadow, hate. You go out to something that is Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love, and that is the definition of God. And the reason you have been disappointed is because you have not yet found Him!
It is God you are looking for. Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune, or high position, or fame, or sufficient vitamins; it is due not to a want of something outside you, but to a want of something inside you. You cannot satisfy a soul with husks! If the sun could speak, it would say that it was happy when shining; if a pencil could speak it would say that it was happy when writing --- for these were the purposes for which they were made. You were made for perfect happiness. That is your purpose. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you.
But have you noticed that when you realize you were made for Perfect Happiness, how much less disappointing the pleasures of earth become? You cease expecting to get silk purses out of sows' ears. Once you realize that God is your end, you are not disappointed, for you put no more hope in things than they can bear. You cease looking for first-rate joys where there are only tenth-rate pleasures.
You begin to see that friendship, the joys of marriage, the thrill of possession, the sunset and the evening star, masterpieces of art and music, the gold and silver of earth, the industries and the comforts of life, are all gifts of God. He dropped them on the roadway of life, to remind you that if these are so beautiful, then what must be Beauty! He intended them to be bridges to cross over to Him. After enjoying the good things of life you were to say: "If the spark of human love is so bright then what must be the Flame!"
Unfortunately, many become so enamored of the gifts the great Giver of Live has drooped on the roadway of life that they build their cities around the gift, and forget the Giver; and when the gifts, out of loyalty to their Maker, fail to give them perfect happiness, they rebel against God and become cynical and disillusioned.
Change your entire point of view! Life is not a mockery. Disappointments are merely markers on the road of life, saying: "Perfect happiness is not here." Though your passions may have been satisfied, you were never satisfied, because while your passions can find satisfaction in this world, you can not. Start with your own insufficiency and begin a search for perfection. Begin with your own emptiness and seek Him who can fill it.
Look at your heart! It tells the story of why you were made. It is not perfect in shape and contour, like a Valentine Heart. There seems to be a small piece missing out of the side of every human heart. That may be to symbolize a piece that was torn out of the Heart of Christ which embraced all humanity on the Cross. But I think the real meaning is that when God made your human heart, He found it so good and so lovable that He kept a small sample of it in heaven. He sent the rest of it into this world to enjoy His gifts, and to use them as stepping stones back to Him, but to be ever mindful that you can never love anything in this world with your whole heart because you have not a whole heart with which to love. In Order to love anyone with your whole heart, in order to be really peaceful, in order to be really wholehearted, you must go back again to God to recover the piece He has been keeping for you from all eternity!
God bless you.
Radio address delivered on December 3, 1944
Peace be to you!
Are you perfectly happy? Or are you still looking for happiness? There can be no doubt that at one time or another in your life you attained that which you believed would make you happy. When you got what you wanted, were you happy?
Do you remember when you were a child, how ardently you looked forward to Christmas? How happy you thought you would be, with your fill of cakes, your hands glutted with toys, and your eyes dancing with the lights on the tree!
Christmas came, and after you had eaten your fill, blown out the last Christmas candle, and played till your toys no longer amused, you climbed into your bed and said, in your own little heart of hearts, that somehow or other it did not quite come up to your expectations. And have you not lived that experience over a thousand times since? You looked forward to the joys of travel, but when your weary feet carried you home and you admitted that the two happiest days were the day you left home and the day you got back.
Perhaps it was marriage you thought which would bring you perfect happiness. Even though it did bring a measure of happiness, you admit that you now take your companion's love for granted. One is never thirsty at the border of the well.
Perhaps it was wealth you wanted. You got it, and now you are afraid of losing it. "A golden bit does not make the better horse." Maybe it was a desire to be well-known that you craved. You did become well-know only to find that reputation is like a ball; as soon as it starts rolling, men begin to kick it around.
The fact is: you want to be perfectly happy, but you are not. You life has been a series of disappointments, shocks, and disillusionments. How have you reacted to your disappointments? Either you became cynical or else you became religious. If you became cynical, you blamed things, rather than yourself. If you were married you said: "If I had another husband, or another wife, I would be happy." Or you said: "If i had another job..."; or, "If I visited another nightclub...", or, "If I were in another city, I would be happy." In every instance, you made happiness extrinsic to yourself. No wonder you are never happy. You are chasing mirages until death overtakes you. But cynicism did not work, because in seeking pleasures you missed the joys of life. Pleasure is of the body; joy is of the mind and heart. Lobster Newburg gives pleasure to certain people, but not even the most avid lobster fans would ever say that it made them joyful. You can quickly become tired of pleasures, but you never tire of joys. A pleasure can be increased to a point where it ceases to be a pleasure; it may even begin to be a pain if carried beyond a certain point; for example, tickling or drinking. But the joy of a good conscience, or the joy of a First communion, or the discovery of a truth, never turns to pain.
Furthermore, have you noticed that as your desire for pleasure increased, the satisfaction from the pleasure decreased? Do you think a philosophy of life is right that is based on the law of diminishing returns?
You think you are having a good time; but time really is the greatest obstacle in the world to happiness, not only because it makes you take pleasures successively, but also because you are never really happy until you are unconscious of the passing of time! The more you look at the clock, the less happy you are! The more you enjoy yourself, the less conscious you are of the passing of time. You say, "Time passed like everything." Maybe, therefore, your happiness has something to do with the eternal! The other reaction to disappointment is much more reasonable. It begins by asking: "Why am I disappointed?"; and then, "How can I avoid it?"
Why are you disappointed? Because of the tremendous disproportion between your desires and your realizations. Your soul has a certain infinity about it, because it is spiritual. But your body, like the world about you, is material, limited, "cabined, cribbed, confined." You can imagine a mountain of gold, but you will never see one. In like manner, you look forward to some earthly pleasure, or position, or state of life, and once you attain it you begin to feel the tremendous disproportion between the ideal you imagined and the reality you possess. Disappointment follows. Every earthly ideal is lost by being possessed. The more material your ideal, the greater the disappointment; the more spiritual it is, the less the disillusionment.
Having discovered why you are disappointed, you take the next step of trying to avoid disappointments entirely. You ask yourself: "What do I desire above all things?" You want perfect life, and perfect truth, and perfect love. Nothing short of the Infinite satisfies you, and to ask you to be satisfied with less would be to destroy your nature. You want life, not for two more years, but always; you want to know all truths, not the truths of economics alone, to the exclusion of history. You also want love without end. All the poetry of love is a cry, a moan, and a weeping. The more pure it is, the more it pleads; the more it is lifted above the earth, the more it laments.
With your feet on earth, you dream of heaven; creature of time, you despise it; flower of a day, you seek to eternalize yourself. Why do you want Life, Truth, Love, unless you were made for them? How could you enjoy the fractions unless there were a whole? Where do they come from? Where is the source of light in the city street at noon? Not under autos, buses, nor the feet of trampling throngs, because their light is mingled with darkness. If you are to find the source of light you must go out to something that has no admixture of darkness or shadow, namely, to pure light, which is the sun. In like manner, if you are to find the source of Life, Truth, and Love, you must go out to a life that is not mingled with its shadow, death; to a Truth not mingled with its shadow, error; and to a Love not mingle with its shadow, hate. You go out to something that is Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love, and that is the definition of God. And the reason you have been disappointed is because you have not yet found Him!
It is God you are looking for. Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune, or high position, or fame, or sufficient vitamins; it is due not to a want of something outside you, but to a want of something inside you. You cannot satisfy a soul with husks! If the sun could speak, it would say that it was happy when shining; if a pencil could speak it would say that it was happy when writing --- for these were the purposes for which they were made. You were made for perfect happiness. That is your purpose. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you.
But have you noticed that when you realize you were made for Perfect Happiness, how much less disappointing the pleasures of earth become? You cease expecting to get silk purses out of sows' ears. Once you realize that God is your end, you are not disappointed, for you put no more hope in things than they can bear. You cease looking for first-rate joys where there are only tenth-rate pleasures.
You begin to see that friendship, the joys of marriage, the thrill of possession, the sunset and the evening star, masterpieces of art and music, the gold and silver of earth, the industries and the comforts of life, are all gifts of God. He dropped them on the roadway of life, to remind you that if these are so beautiful, then what must be Beauty! He intended them to be bridges to cross over to Him. After enjoying the good things of life you were to say: "If the spark of human love is so bright then what must be the Flame!"
Unfortunately, many become so enamored of the gifts the great Giver of Live has drooped on the roadway of life that they build their cities around the gift, and forget the Giver; and when the gifts, out of loyalty to their Maker, fail to give them perfect happiness, they rebel against God and become cynical and disillusioned.
Change your entire point of view! Life is not a mockery. Disappointments are merely markers on the road of life, saying: "Perfect happiness is not here." Though your passions may have been satisfied, you were never satisfied, because while your passions can find satisfaction in this world, you can not. Start with your own insufficiency and begin a search for perfection. Begin with your own emptiness and seek Him who can fill it.
Look at your heart! It tells the story of why you were made. It is not perfect in shape and contour, like a Valentine Heart. There seems to be a small piece missing out of the side of every human heart. That may be to symbolize a piece that was torn out of the Heart of Christ which embraced all humanity on the Cross. But I think the real meaning is that when God made your human heart, He found it so good and so lovable that He kept a small sample of it in heaven. He sent the rest of it into this world to enjoy His gifts, and to use them as stepping stones back to Him, but to be ever mindful that you can never love anything in this world with your whole heart because you have not a whole heart with which to love. In Order to love anyone with your whole heart, in order to be really peaceful, in order to be really wholehearted, you must go back again to God to recover the piece He has been keeping for you from all eternity!
God bless you.
Fulton J. Sheen's Book -"You"
Fulton J. Sheen was approaching 50 during the Second World War when he gave the talks titled "You" on a national radio broadcast program of the United States. It was given weekly between December 3, 1944 till April 1, 1945, spanning from Advent season till Easter. I've listened to this series of audio tapes more than once, loved it so much that I purchase the book from amazon.com. It arrived today. A good start for the New Year 2008!
A Fan of Father Fulton J. Sheen
I have long been a fan of Father Fulton J. Sheen, but could not recall when I started it and how. Just I am still listening to his old tapes while commuting to work. You can find many of his audio and video works from fultonsheen.com. There is a "movement" held by Fulton Sheen Foundation for the cause of canonizing this beloved archbishop as a saint. I am all for it, God Bless! I have listened to so many audio tapes about Christianity, from both Protestant and Catholic speakers, Father Sheen touches my heart the most with his immense wisdom.
Be Who You Are
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
- Dr. Seuss
I frequently hear people say this - be who you are, and say what you feel. I also know the reasons why I should be the way I am and say what I feel inside. But from time to time I found myself falling into situations where I am not who I am and I do not say what I feel, just because I am afraid. This saying of Dr. Seuss enlightened me. He tells me why I need not be afraid. Because, if I am as truthful as being myself and saying what I think, I have nothing to be afraid of other than how other people will think about me or judge me. Then Dr. Seuss pointed out, that what they think about me really does NOT matter.
- Dr. Seuss
I frequently hear people say this - be who you are, and say what you feel. I also know the reasons why I should be the way I am and say what I feel inside. But from time to time I found myself falling into situations where I am not who I am and I do not say what I feel, just because I am afraid. This saying of Dr. Seuss enlightened me. He tells me why I need not be afraid. Because, if I am as truthful as being myself and saying what I think, I have nothing to be afraid of other than how other people will think about me or judge me. Then Dr. Seuss pointed out, that what they think about me really does NOT matter.
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