By Ana Perišić, hagioassistant
YOUR PATH
I have been working in the social welfare system for years, actively or as an external associate. One would say that in this segment of today’s society is the greatest human suffering, but it is not so.
It is impossible to pass through this world without some torment, evil, loneliness. There is no place where it is written how to avoid adversity, moreover, no man was born who, as the people say, is doing well.
Life happens on two levels: as a life given to us, for which none of the people could guarantee when and to whom it will happen, and the one that we choose to live. We are not the owners of the former, but we primarily manage the latter. We are born in a specific time and space, in a specific family, nation and year… But the most important question we have to worry about for the rest of our lives is how to live that original life, a question to which we should seek the best answer.
People often ask me, „How to live?“ People who ask themselves, others, who seek help are not lost at all, no, they are on the path, they are walking and someday they will reach their goal. Those, on the other hand, who do not ask themselves, are the ones I worry about.
They say there will be a severe economic crisis, worse than ten years ago. It is possible, all economic parameters show that. But only crisis periods force man to stop, to think, to look behind him and recognize the path, because while he is alive on the Earth he still has the opportunity to find the right direction, get out of loss, reduce speed in the pursuit of the unimportant.
Only illness, severe illness, stops man from wondering how to go on…, only when we reach the threshold of death does man ask himself a question and an answer: „Was it worth living like that!?“
Should we wait for death or earthquakes of life to see what to do with ourselves? Life, it is you! When you stop at the gift you have received, you perceive the Creator, you accept the gift of „yourself“, the way you are, and when you say „yes“ to your life, only then you clear the path you have to go, the path you have to go, the path from which only you can remove even the biggest obstacles.
No uncertainty can stop you, because you have a mission to reach your goal. It becomes irrelevant where it is and how long it will last, only one thing is important: do you accept to go, walk, be guided, accomplish your life’s tasks.
Your choice becomes either your happiness or your torment, because if you choose only property, titles, human prestige, then you tread on others, you live only for this world and your belly. But if you look beyond the threshold of pain, expecting health, forgiving those who have hurt you, you decide to endure the torment of doing only good, realizing your abilities to perfection, you have won. No money can be paid for that happiness of inner peace and joy. I often meet such people in my work. To me, they are wealthy people. Values are the ability to persevere on the path, the only realities that lead to the goal are love, trust, kindness, truthfulness, justice… And the goal is the Creator, the one from whom we originated and to whom we eventually return.
You are what you choose to be, and no one can surpass or replace you in your life’s journey. You leave this world without property, carrying only the survived pain and the accomplished original mission.
That is why there is no fear of crisis, you just need to respond to Life.
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Born in Split. For many years she worked as a teacher of vocational subjects at the Secondary Agricultural School in Zagreb, for which she previously studied at the Faculty of Agriculture and the Pedagogical Academy, also in Zagreb. After graduating from ITKL in 2004 at the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb, she took over the position of director of the Children’s Home and head of the Center for Rehabilitation and Occupational Therapy of the CZN. She also led the project Psychosocial and spiritual assistance to people in need in CZN. She currently works as a hagioassistant and mentor at the Center for Hagiotherapy – Split, and is one of the members of the editorial board of Hagio.hr.