One of my (many) self-mantras is "live thoughtfully." I've been thinking about what the idea of thoughtful living actually means. And, in this season, I am increasingly aware of how good at living thoughtfully I am.

/Pause for self-congratulations and pats on back

Of course, I should mention, I am good at living thoughtfully when my thoughts are only focused on myself.

Self-indulgent navel-gazing blogging aside (did you sense the irony in the sarcasm too?) it is a sad fact. Our lives (mine included) are increasingly over burdened by thoughts of self: self satisfaction and filling some deeper self need. We are so insistent on grasping on tightly to our rights, our freedoms, our opinions, our time and commodities and space, our blessed need to be heard and loved and paid attention to, dammit, that it is so very easy to lose sight of the fact that our only thoughts are on ourselves. We have promoted ourselves above others, which is easy when we never intended to think about them in the first place.

At it's heart, that is why living thoughtfully is so hard, so unpleasant, so terribly unpopular. Not that we are called to loathe ourselves, or not think towards our own needs and safety and wants. But life is more about the focus on self, it's about thinking about others more and better than we think about ourselves. It's about putting the needs of others before our own, it's about thinking beyond the comfortable, thinking beyond the people and things that we know. It's about holding our tongue and not exerting our need for an opinion, or our rights, and thinking about how they may be perceived or who those words and actions may hurt. Even if we do not harm ourselves (or care if we do) harming others is thoughtless.

This does not, of course, mean that your person, your self, who you value yourself to be, is in any way diminished. Living thoughtfully, living by putting others first, by putting myself last, living in an other-centered mentality...only compromises and diminishes who I am if I let it. I am me, I am true to myself, I am authentically Kate when I live to the fullest extent of who I was created to be. It takes wisdom and discernment, speaking the truth in love is much more than stating an opinion because you can. People may get hurt all the same, but the intent is the difference. The rub is found in the delivery.

Living thoughtfully. I want to do better. I hope to do better.