Valerio Albisetti - Il viaggio della Vita

Now and then we become aware that we’re not living according to our own ideals but according to those of others. To avoid doing that, we should ask ourselves honestly every day what is most important to us. We have to remember we can’t control everything. Realizing that, we should pray this prayer [Ed., cf., Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr]: Oh, Lord, give me inner calm to accept what I can’t change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to...

In the end, to complete my discussion on the topic of relationship: My ideas on relationship presuppose freedom to speak, willingness to listen, and agreement on life’s values between those in relationship. Any relationship of mine involves making plans and carrying them out together, with no motive other than moving together toward more understanding and growth in psychospirituality and creating a secure place of trust where both feel at ease – able to trust...

The more you become conscious of your own mortality, the less likely you’ll sit in judgment on your neighbor – not because of indifference or resignation to him, but because you are both part of and have both embraced, and share the same human condition. You’re both equipped with the same awareness, and, more importantly, both of you have chosen to live your earthly existence as a pathway to discovery and mindfulness – not just mindful that...

As I see it, only from an awareness of one’s own mortality can a journey of deep, personal awareness, both psychological and spiritual, begin, and any relationship has to start there, too, whether it’s professional or intimately personal. That awareness has to be the starting place. Only from this common awareness can one learn not to judge another but to try to discover whether or not he or she is on the same journey. Besides that, awareness of one’s own...

Any relationship with another is based on freedom – freedom from the need to judge, freedom to become aware of one’s own mortality, freedom to explore one’s own human nature, and, most of all, freedom to become aware of one’s particular mission in life and of one’s gifts, strengthened as they are by virtue, together with freedom to continually try to reduce as much as possible one’s vices. So, a logical question then arises concerning...

I have to say that, having arrived at the sunset of my existence, I can’t understand any relationship with another (whether in love or friendship) that doesn’t involve a willingness to recognize and respect the other. It’s important, in that regard, to ask ourselves what image we have of the other, since it’s from that image that our relationship stems. Nowadays there’s no one who completely rejects the other or wants to destroy him. He prefers...