(these are the last two parts of the outline under Bringing things into Focus)

Limitations:

There’s so much we do not know, and will never know.  That’s just the way ‘it is.’  We’re only human beings on this earth for a short time, and only conscious of this existence.  Even then we are often not aware of who and what we are, or what we could be.

We are such a small spec in the total universe.  The realization that everything is temporary is so hard to absorb.  It is difficult to even begin to comprehend, especially when we tend to push that concept away.  We don’t want to understand that.  It’s very scary, so why try to accept it. 

Our limitation is most often only ourselves.  Life often gets ‘thrown away’ with ‘key meetings.’  There’s a danger in working only on the outside.  It’s the inside we should be focusing on.  Look not at the event, as it’s about what happens to you on the inside.  The task is not to get pulled in.  It’s about losing our sense of self.

Too often our life is in neutral.  We’re ‘just there’ and events just happen.  We don’t always experience life.  As a result we forget to taste life as it goes by.

We often attempt to define and control life.  We sometimes try to manipulate life.  Things are often neither right nor wrong, they just are.  (Most things are not right or wrong.)  Life is like that.  It seems by nature we want to define and control.  How difficult it is for us to go with the flow, accept reality, and be alert to what the world is often trying to telling us.

Strengths:

There is not a single path we are all on.  There are, however, usually some common concerns and desires we all share.  At some level, at some stage of our life, we usually have feelings of awe and wonder, seek happiness beyond material possessions or other external rewards, have feelings of compassion and empathy for others, deepen connections with other people, ask questions about topics such as suffering and what happens after death, experience feelings of interconnectedness and a desire to make the world a better place.  It is a process and our values hopefully become clearer.