It's incredible how quickly and strongly your deepest desires change when you become sick. When sick, all we absolutely want is to be healthy--we'd give anything to be healthy. Previous higher aspirations disappear or fade deeply into the background.

I've felt that this week, and feel the timeliness of it to be serendipitous. With Christmas fast approaching, a time to be thankful and rejoice in gift of family and friends; and New Year's, when everyone reflects on their year and how to be even better for the upcoming one; being sick this week has spurred reconsideration of the big picture.

This consideration is connected to my recent musings around living slow and doing less. I haven't been able to do much this week, either around the house or outside it, and that's meant I've done less, and lived slowly. It felt deadening at first. But as I sat with it, I realized how I had become caught up in consumption again, how I was no longer mindful while eating or completing daily tasks, how quick-tempered and impatient and simply limited I had become.

There are ebbs and flows in life. We feel motivation come and go, and our habits shift over time. But basic discipline enables us to build, slowly, even 1% more at a time, each day. Maintaining discipline can be difficult, and I've certainly lost it recently in many ways. Being sick has granted me access to the larger perspective that discipline enables me to be the best I can, which translates into less consumption and more production, more contribution, for the world.

I believe we're all capable of contributing to the betterment of the universe in our own unique way. That Confucius was right: we must cultivate some discipline, and the best of ourselves, before we can outwardly contribute to the world. Sickness can potentially act as a purge of our decaying listlessness and routine. It's been the case for me this week, and I feel more invigorated than ever to be the best human possible. So that I can, in some small way, help contribute to changing the world. Sometimes it just requires a little rain to see the rainbow.