Monday, September 11, 2017

Leveling up

THERE’S no other way but to level up. With all the new
developments exploding in the world today, we are faced with new
challenges as well as opportunities, and we just have to be properly
equipped to tackle them.
  
            The technical aspects alone of these developments are
formidable enough. They require nothing less than tremendous energy
from us. But the fundamental spiritual requirements are even more
formidable. We should not only worry about the software. We need to
give due attention to the hardware.
  
            We can never outgrow what Christ said: “Seek first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
added to you.” (Mt 6,33) This gives us the proper sense of priority,
otherwise we would just get lost.
  
            Remember what Christ again said: “For what shall it profit
a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mk
8,36) We need to be firmly convinced that with God first, all the
other things in the world would come in their proper order.
  
            Of course, there is a learning curve involved here. We
just have to be game enough to go through it, like having an
adventure. We should not mind so much the effort to be exerted, and
the ups and downs, the trials and errors we can expect. We just have
to remain focused on what we are supposed to do in the face of all
these new developments.

              For one thing, we have to learn how to discipline
ourselves and deepen our virtue of order. It cannot be denied that we
can easily get distracted, overdo certain things at the expense of
more important duties we have. We can get carried away by the
excitement of the moment and forget the bigger picture of things.
  
            For example, we now have a lot of people plunged in social
media, spending hours and hours there, even forgetting their meals.
While the social media definitely serve a good purpose, it should not
undermine the need for us to have direct personal contact with people.
We have to learn how to properly blend personal contact with
automation.
  
            Our cellphones, if not used prudently, can harm family
life and other relations we have. Imagine a family dinner with all the
members quiet because everyone is tinkering with his cellphone. This
unfortunately is becoming a common sight.
  
            And the idea of rest is fast getting distorted. For many
people now, rest simply means to do nothing, to be idle and to go into
some man cave to indulge oneself in purely selfish pleasures.
  
            Rest is not meant to cut us off from God and from others.
It simply means a change of place, of activity, of pace and rhythm,
where we can recover our energies and reignite our passion for God and
for others. Remember Christ saying, “Come to me and I will give you
rest.” It’s like a farmland that is not for a while planted with
things so as to allow it to fallow and recover its natural elements.
  
            We can read books to expand our knowledge of things, study
the new techniques offered by the new technologies, and go to deeper
meditations to get to know and love God and others better. This is how
we ought to level up. The secret, I think, is to leverage the new
things while keeping tab on the limits we have to respect. This is
prudence.


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