tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862452.post111771207394926933..comments2023-08-20T01:25:15.107-07:00Comments on Vermont Diary: Simply irresistibleKarenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14293311336533593242noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862452.post-1118705383421281652005-06-13T16:29:00.000-07:002005-06-13T16:29:00.000-07:00No one can take another person's sufferings away. ...No one can take another person's sufferings away. For the very good reason that there are -hidden inside the pain, the most important lessons life has to offer. We can offer respite, a listening ear, a hand up. Because it is a lesson for us, too, if we pay deep attention. <BR/><BR/>Life is uncertain, eat dessert first.Zhoenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03515663141425057088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862452.post-1117724387147982622005-06-02T07:59:00.000-07:002005-06-02T07:59:00.000-07:00Sounds like the people you advise are lucky to hav...Sounds like the people you advise are lucky to have you, Karen - someone experienced and knowledgeable who will sit with them and look at the problem, that's about the best any of us can expect. <BR/><BR/>Hope you'll be writing one day about how this guy was forced to start his own business in a hurry and it turned out to be a success and made him very happy... and he'll be able to tell his kid that story, so the kid grows up knowing good stuff can come out of crises...<BR/><BR/>Please write the other piece sometime. Maybe I'll move to Vermont.Jeanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08690685768980280402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862452.post-1117716912960800112005-06-02T05:55:00.000-07:002005-06-02T05:55:00.000-07:00You are eloquent, as always. I think the art of l...You are eloquent, as always. I think the art of listening is recognizing that someone else's problem is very, very big in their own life, as it would be if we had the same problem in our own. And recognizing that however much we might wish otherwise, we cannot fix others' big stuff. Or even our own. We can sit together and gaze at the big stuff and say, "Oh, wow." This is the practice of compassion. This is the acceptance that we are only small particles in the universe, unique and blessed as we are. My humble opinion.Karenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14293311336533593242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862452.post-1117715087095395852005-06-02T05:24:00.000-07:002005-06-02T05:24:00.000-07:00The big stuff. It is so hard to keep things in per...The big stuff. It is so hard to keep things in perspective. Big is hard to measure because it is so relative. Context, context, context, the "location" of personal business. We, too, have friends that have fallen on hard times, and we help where we can, and try to treat them with dignity through the process.<BR/><BR/>Big stuff is like objects we see at a distance; the further we are from it, the smaller it appears. Writer Douglas Adams (Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy) had a character's space ship with a device that made it invisible by cloaking it in Someone Else's Problem.<BR/><BR/>But just outside the passenger window are these words of caution: Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08233472492675055779noreply@blogger.com