The Votes Are In!
2023 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → 
Dorothy’s Place: Pondering or thinking?
Arcadia Weekly Apr 08, 2013
by
share with
No matter how much you care, some people just don’t care back. You cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to the other person. These tidbits of thought are taken from an e-mail I received recently about observations of life that were made by someone.
It came at about the same time I had re-read an old interview done with Dr. Dean Ornish. He said that besides being a manifestation of romantic intimacy, “…love can also be a manifestation of intimacy between you and your family, you and your friends, or you and members of your community.”
The e-mail and the interview set me to thinking. I do that sometimes, even though it is hard work. I tend to ponder a lot, but really deep thinking takes serious concentration and, for me, solitude. Sometimes I can think while in conversation with others but then I often re-think later, in solitude, and come to completely different decisions.
My improved health has allowed me to return to my favorite corner on the patio of the Peacock Cafe where I can sit in solitude, drink coffee and absorb the beauty of nature at the Arboretum. A good place to just ponder or to really think. The choice is mine.
The other day I sat deciding just which I would do as I began to wallow in a bit of self-pity and maybe a little anger. I had just been let down by someone I had thought to be a friend.
No matter how good friends are, they may hurt you occasionally and you forgive them for that, because they are your friends. I pondered a bit as to whether I was in the mood to forgive her. I pondered more deeply and determined she was not a friend but someone I had only thought was a friend. I didn’t need to forgive her, I only needed to forgive myself for making a bad judgement.
I pondered a bit more and decided I could do that. I can forgive myself for making a mistake because I’m not perfect. I wouldn’t want to be perfect because all the wonderful people who truly are my friends couldn’t measure up to me, so then they wouldn’t love me any longer.
I wondered if I had pondered enough to call it thinking. I didn’t care. I decided to forget her, forgive myself, have a coffee refill, sit in solitude and absorb beauty.
As I was doing all that, a Peacock pooped on my foot. Kind of put life into perspective didn’t he?
More from Arcadia Weekly
