Last Friday, I attended a positively provocative lecture sponsored and hosted by UMKC and featuring the "Princeton Prophet," Dr. Cornel West. Among the many profound statements he made, one in particular struck me. Dr. West spoke about the "UNEXAMINED LIFE." The term alone commands pause and consideration. Upon hearing it, I immediately began to question just what is the unexamined life and whether I was living one. Then, Dr. West said this:
“The unexamined life is a life not worth living. But the examined life is a painful one.”
WHOA! The unexamined life is a life not worth living! How many of us walk around each day failing to examine our own lives? As busy people, we tend to move through life on "auto pilot" never making time to take an account of our lives in an effort to understand and know just WHO we really are. As a result, we have careers but lack purpose. We seek relationships but ration love. We often give but we rarely sacrifice.
Friend, are you examining your life on a regular basis--or at all? Do you REALLY know why you are here at this time and what is to be your contribution to the betterment of the world around you? And, even if you do know...even if you are living the examined life, what are you doing about it?
I challenge you just as I was challenged to live the examined life. Make a quality decision right now to examine your life. Seek the truth about your circumstance and existence. What you find may be painful--the truth often is. However, there is the grand satisfaction that comes from knowing that who and what you are is the real deal.
If you do not know anything else about me, please know this: I am irreversibly decided, fully persuaded and totally convinced that the unexamined life just is not for me. I want to deal with myself in others in truth.
God bless!
/drg/
Hmmm...it seemed like I was a lot
closer than this picture indicates.
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