Do you have an eternal view of things now?

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goodcatholic

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Must admit I am gradually starting to look at things more from an “eternity” perspective.
As opposed to looking at this life as if it is the only one. As if I don’t achieve secular success before I die, I am doomed.
This might be the key to strengthening my faith. Always keep an eternal view on things. Never get too caught up in the problems we face each day. No need to be anxious. As someone said “Be not afraid” is stated more than 360 times in the Bible.
Yet it is so easy to get caught up in worldly criteria of success. As if “loser” is the label we should always avoid. The world says “your reputation with others is all that matters”. Yet a quieter voice says “look and listen to me”. God’s.
Eternity is a long time. Just contemplating infinity gives me a headache. But it puts this life in perspective. This life is just a spec. A grain of sand. Miniscule. Don’t take it too seriously.
 
I call this “The long view”, and it’s important to maintain as well as difficult. To help I bought one of those little skulls off amazon (looks pretty lifelike, my wife doesn’t like it) and I keep that on my home altar (memento mori). And when I need a good reminder I read “End of the Future World…”, which was a favorite of the Little Flower.
 
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Think of it in terms of context; the larger context of eternity.
 
but that is the more important context isn’t it? So we should always think from that perspective?
especially when we get stressed out.
 
U know, whenever I get stressed out, I try to recall the many times in my life when something stressed me out… i dont even remember the causes…lost in my history, lost in oblivion. i was so stressed over something that is water under the bridge. Whatever stresses me today, I know, will come and go, it will all pass. I am much less stressed looking at things in the context of eternity.
 
It’s all true, and we know it; the bulk of our unhappiness comes from looking for it in all the wrong places-and fear of the world’s opinion tends to lead us around by the nose. Anyway, I appreciate the Church’s teachings on this:
1723 The beatitude we are promised confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else. It teaches us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement - however beneficial it may be - such as science, technology, and art, or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love:

All bow down before wealth. Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. They measure happiness by wealth; and by wealth they measure respectability. . . . It is a homage resulting from a profound faith . . . that with wealth he may do all things. Wealth is one idol of the day and notoriety is a second. . . . Notoriety, or the making of a noise in the world - it may be called “newspaper fame” - has come to be considered a great good in itself, and a ground of veneration.
 
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Yessir, it is-all part of 1723, the second paragraph being a quote from Cardinal John Henry Newman.
 
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yeah the second part sounded less formal and a little sarcastic even.
 
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