I am impressed by the choice of words in this post like active patience, expectant waiting, anxious unease, and calm surprise.
The year 2020 that is about to pass can justifiably be summarized by these words.
The term waiting implies expectations and hope. It also includes the key word, patience, which is the game of waiting and watching.
What makes the difference in life is the attitude during this period of expectant waiting. Those with positivity are waiting with active patience, with hope and faith. They are the ones who are complying with the new norms of life. Those with negativity are waiting with passive patience, with heads buried in sand like the ostrich, waiting for the heavens to fall or for the world to end. They tend to defy the new norms, simply out of their frustrations or unfounded obsessions.
This year has also made the difference between philosophy and science much clearer. While philosophers pray and wait for things to happen, scientists in addition, act and make things happen. The two however, are not exclusive of each other. On the contrary, they complement each other. While scientific research has provided vital information and prophylaxis from the pandemic, the philosophical recourse to hope, faith and prayers have helped to maintain the uneasy calm and belief in miracles of favorable surprises.
This year of anxious waiting and careful watching has changed the entire concepts that hitherto were considered as norms in life. The definitions of family and society too have changed. Family now means those who “stick together” in spite of the requirements of social distancing. Society too has changed from being physical to virtual. Social communications are chiefly virtual, be they in business, education, entertainments, and sports. Personal communications too are virtual only, beyond any type of physical contacts like embracing and hugging, or even shaking hands. When coming closer or unmasking the face used to be the virtues for us humans, now social distancing and keeping a masked face have become virtuous necessities for human survival.
I have been curiously watching these changing paradigms of life and have been expectantly waiting for spiritual guidance and scientific miracles. I am a firm believer that every phase of life is temporary, nothing is permanent, and that change is the law of nature; when earlier times changed, present time too shall change.
Pandemics and disasters have come and gone, and life has stubbornly sustained itself, with acceptance, adjustments, and accommodations with the new paradigms. History has been the witness of human resilience and adaptability. This knowledge from the past, the will power to sustain the present and hope for a better tomorrow is how we have been expectantly waiting during the year to which we will soon say goodbye.
Our philosophical beliefs, spiritual faith, and scientific miracles will surely herald a better new year; not forgetting the selfless services of frontline workers who are contributing to sustain the hope and faith in human endeavors and endurance to succeed against all odds. I have been expectantly waiting, admiring their sacrifices at all levels, personal, social, even that of life at times, and respectfully bowing my head in reverence to these neo-saviors of human lives. God bless them.
God bless us all with the wisdom to calmly accept the new surprises of life and live with them, without unnecessary unease and anxiety.
I am impressed by the choice of words in this post like active patience, expectant waiting, anxious unease, and calm surprise.
The year 2020 that is about to pass can justifiably be summarized by these words.
The term waiting implies expectations and hope. It also includes the key word, patience, which is the game of waiting and watching.
What makes the difference in life is the attitude during this period of expectant waiting. Those with positivity are waiting with active patience, with hope and faith. They are the ones who are complying with the new norms of life. Those with negativity are waiting with passive patience, with heads buried in sand like the ostrich, waiting for the heavens to fall or for the world to end. They tend to defy the new norms, simply out of their frustrations or unfounded obsessions.
This year has also made the difference between philosophy and science much clearer. While philosophers pray and wait for things to happen, scientists in addition, act and make things happen. The two however, are not exclusive of each other. On the contrary, they complement each other. While scientific research has provided vital information and prophylaxis from the pandemic, the philosophical recourse to hope, faith and prayers have helped to maintain the uneasy calm and belief in miracles of favorable surprises.
This year of anxious waiting and careful watching has changed the entire concepts that hitherto were considered as norms in life. The definitions of family and society too have changed. Family now means those who “stick together” in spite of the requirements of social distancing. Society too has changed from being physical to virtual. Social communications are chiefly virtual, be they in business, education, entertainments, and sports. Personal communications too are virtual only, beyond any type of physical contacts like embracing and hugging, or even shaking hands. When coming closer or unmasking the face used to be the virtues for us humans, now social distancing and keeping a masked face have become virtuous necessities for human survival.
I have been curiously watching these changing paradigms of life and have been expectantly waiting for spiritual guidance and scientific miracles. I am a firm believer that every phase of life is temporary, nothing is permanent, and that change is the law of nature; when earlier times changed, present time too shall change.
Pandemics and disasters have come and gone, and life has stubbornly sustained itself, with acceptance, adjustments, and accommodations with the new paradigms. History has been the witness of human resilience and adaptability. This knowledge from the past, the will power to sustain the present and hope for a better tomorrow is how we have been expectantly waiting during the year to which we will soon say goodbye.
Our philosophical beliefs, spiritual faith, and scientific miracles will surely herald a better new year; not forgetting the selfless services of frontline workers who are contributing to sustain the hope and faith in human endeavors and endurance to succeed against all odds. I have been expectantly waiting, admiring their sacrifices at all levels, personal, social, even that of life at times, and respectfully bowing my head in reverence to these neo-saviors of human lives. God bless them.
God bless us all with the wisdom to calmly accept the new surprises of life and live with them, without unnecessary unease and anxiety.
Happy New Year.