Life Cues

Mild depres­sion begins with a small mus­cle twitch in the lower left part of my back. It is a life cue. I pay atten­tion to it so that I can adjust my mood through the day (less sugar and more exer­cise). When I am so tired that I can­not even answer the phone, and my sleep is so deep that I feel like I am in a coma, then I am either doing too much or tak­ing what I do too seriously.

I have other life cues that are wor­thy of note: When every­thing becomes a task, then my imag­i­na­tion has gone on vaca­tion and I need to get it back to work. If I have to rely on willpower all of the time, then I have for­got­ten my life-dream. When I do not eat, then I do not feel like feel­ing. If my dreams are really wild, it is prob­a­bly a full moon. After all, I too am a part of nature.

It takes a life­time to learn your­self. Being born does not make you human. To be fully human you will have to develop a keen aware­ness of just about every­thing that com­prises YOU. In short, you have to pay atten­tion to this thing called YOUR LIFE. Doing the same old things just brings you the same old lim­ited results. A fully-lived life is an adven­ture. Just going through the motions is like tread­ing water in a flood. Yes, you are still alive, but you are not get­ting to shore, nor are you res­cu­ing any­one else.

How well do you notice the life cues of oth­ers? Chil­dren are ter­rific at this. They know your moods bet­ter than you do. Pets have the same gift. Have you noticed the social cues where you work? They are there for your own advance­ment or career demise. Pay attention.

Jesus was keen on get­ting his fol­low­ers to notice the “signs of the times.” They are also to dis­cern so astutely that they can sense the dif­fer­ence between the realm of the every­day world and his “king­dom” or per­spec­tive. Let your heart be your guide, but know your heart so well that you can fully trust what you think you are observ­ing or feel­ing. Take some time to get to know your­self. In doing so, you are going to get to know an amaz­ing person.