What cannot be avoided must be welcomed.
What cannot be avoided must be welcomed. African Proverb?
I’m told this is an African proverb, in fact an old African proverb. We all go through bad times, in the Bible Job had more than his fair share but rarely seems to have sat around moping about it. Walt Disney is reputed to have said to ‘keep moving on’. The city of Chicago was burned badly but instead of the dwellers being depressed and moving to Canada they rebuilt. The Scots were defeated and oppressed many many times but never gave up in relentlessly trying to keep their freedom. What cannot be avoided must be welcomed, if you hate every little setback and everything you don’t want to do then you’ll become very bitter and self centered. If instead of disliking things which you must do it’s my opinion that if you welcome them and try to look on the good side then you’ll find life far more enjoyable.
I’ll leave it at that, the proverb itself is enough to make you think.
Kind regards, Robert.
Tags: Philosophy
November 19th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
tink:
I recommend thinking on a regular basis!
Kind regards, Robert.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I know this is an older post, but was just browsling through…
I’m glad I found this one. I’d not heard that little proverb before. It’s worth thinking over and I’m pretty sure that’s one I’ll remember.
There’s an old, old song by The Police. Can’t remember the name of the album, too lazy to look it up. “When the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around.” A little trite. But I have reminded myself of it more than once.
I recently read a quote I liked, and I think it was by Winston Churchill. Could be wrong.. “If you are going through hell, keep going.” I like that. I had a hard time explaining it to a Dutch friend; he didn’t get it at all, and said it sounded “mean” or something. In English he has a lot of trouble with the literal and it is easier for him to understand concrete ideas. Maybe that is true with a lot of people for whom English is not their native tongue, don’t know. (And many natural born Americans I know can’t grasp shit from shit, so… there you go.) Anyway, my Dutch friend thought the quote meant, “If you are going through hell, keep on going around in it and stay there.” I had a fairly hard time getting him to grasp it, though the idea’s not that complex… (Not saying anything about the intelligence of my Dutch friend; he’s quite intelligent, and it was only a “lost in translation” thing.)
Anyway, I just felt compelled to comment on this. Thanks for sharing that proverb. When I first read it I thought… “Okay… things that cannot be avoided. All right, got plenty of those. But must they be *welcomed*? Should I have to go so far as to welcome them? I don’t want to welcome them. I dislike negative circumstances in my life and thus they are most UNwelcome.” But that was just the knee-jerk response I had to reading it. I’ve been thinking about it.
Not long ago I read and compared in Wikipedia various articles on Absurdism, Existentialism, and Nihilism… Most interesting. (If you look up Absurdism on Wikipedia there’s an interesting chart there; worth looking up if you are interested in comparing different philosophies as I am.) Somewhere in all that information I read, I read a bit something like, (paraphrased)… Man’s plight. In negative situations, one can do different things. Rage against it, get mad (but not in the way of becoming inspired to do something constructive about whatever problem it is) and accomplish nothing, only make oneself miserable and bitter. Or, there’s always the option of suicide, if you’d like to just give up. OR, you can *accept*.
(Thinking: Was that in the article(s) on existentialsim? Hmm.. I dunno, whatever.) So anyway, I try to accept. Still try to change negative things if/when I can. But accept. And try to either wait it out, think of ways to solve it, etc., in the meantime.
So… “welcoming”. Well, why not. Welcome maybe in the sense that you accept it and do not cause yourself undue stress over it. And possibly welcome it, in certain situations, as a time where you are learning or growing. We sure don’t grow intellectually if we’re happy-jolly every waking moment. You don’t learn much of a damn thing from that, I guess.
Perhaps I will on occasion not only try to accept but to welcome what cannot be avoided. I’m guessing this will be difficult in some instances. But I think I have spent more time thinking on this one little entry than I have on all the other entries here. (And that’s quite a few.) Nice to stumble upon.