Here's a poem I found on a career website as an inspiriational poem. It's by Oriah MountainDreamer. The author of a best-selling career book listed this poem in his "resources" section of his webpage as something to motivate and encourage. Look at my comments at the end.
The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
On the surface, it seems to be all about being true to yourself, getting a life, etc. Some of it is good.
And yet....
Upon deeper analysis it seems to be about listening ONLY to yourself, caring about yourself, nurturung yourself and let everyone else be dammed.
Look at this stanza...
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
Hmmmm.....does this sound like WAS to you?
In other words, being true to yourself, even if it means being "faithless" or unfaithful to another, is the way to go.
By the way objective "truth" is not important, what's important is "leaning into our our own honesty."
Maybe marital infidelity is partly fueled by the narcisissm of our age that stresses being true to oneself apart from consequences to anyone else.
I've also noticed that many books on affairs and marriage counseling never actually say an affair is WRONG. They say it doesn't work in the interestes of the marriage. Well, DUH, generally marriages don't last if one partner is openly screwing around on another.
Actually, I kinda liked the poem--interestingly, minus the stanza you pointed out. I took it more as a statement of wanting to know the real person in someone else, and conversely being willing to share the things we struggle with rather than providing simple answers.
I do see you point, tho, especially in that stanza. As a recent victim of two very narcissistic people who very virtuously "lived into their own honesty" while sacrificing those they had no business sacrificing--there must be more to this life than self-actualization. Or perhaps, there must be more to self-actualizing (and becoming who God intended for us to be) than purely narcissistic pursuits.
But then, that's just my opinion.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
Hi theoden, I was thinking, would you be "reading" that part of the poem the way you did if you had not come across this "lovely" adventure?
What I am saying after reading your comment I guess, is that unfortunately, and speaking about me- this journey did cost me the loss of innocence...
I like the poem, I think it can be "translated" the way you read it but it can also be read as "be true to yourself and dont be afraid to be genuine and honest and embrace whatever life throws at you, use it to become better, stronger, truer".
I wouldnt want my H to stay with me if that wasnt his choice and will. I wouldnt want my H to look back and feel he wasted his life with me. You know?
But I do wish all those WAS found it in their hearts to fight for their Rs and Ms BEFORE they decided it wasnt what they wanted. I am afraid in most cases they follow an impulse and not their inner truth.
People give up easily, and that exactly what it is said here :
I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
With bandaid OPs, new life, illusion, taking the easy way out
I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes."
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. Committement even when the going gets tough
BTW, I think most of "us" LBSs do/did/have done that:
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
At least I have, literatelly and not so literatelly... (forgive me for my English) K
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
This is the part that interests me. I wonder how a WAS copes with that part? It always strikes me that those that leave for reasons of infidelity and MLC might have a HUGE problem with liking the company they keep in the empty moments.....hence the need to fill their time with others or distractions and thereby avoid empty moments........or just keeping their own company....they feed of others/ things.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
This is the part that interests me. I wonder how a WAS copes with that part? It always strikes me that those that leave for reasons of infidelity and MLC might have a HUGE problem with liking the company they keep in the empty moments.....hence the need to fill their time with others or distractions and thereby avoid empty moments........or just keeping their own company....they feed of others/ things.
Saffie--
I wonder the same thing. Rather than have to be alone with the very real reality of their decisions, they pursue the next rush, the next thrill, the next partner in order to ensure they never have to be alone with their thoughts. Kind of sad to think they can never get real with themselves, much less someone else.
Living God's blessings with grace and dignity~ SMW
M40/H36 T16/M14 4K B2/08 S4/08 current
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. I Corinthians 13:7
