I don't keep a lot of "secrets" but there are some things I hold close to the vest and I just don't feel the need to share with a lot of people. There are things in each of our lives that we need to battle alone or at least work through without having our point of view or direction influenced. As much as we rely on family and friends, there are some walks you have to take alone or with limited support.
With that said, I have reintroduced myself to a more "zen" approach. In recent years I fought to get out of the influential trappings of my past and I feel it has worked well in some areas of my life. I drifted away from that, as I suppose I was sort of content with the progress I made, but really never pushed it further. I am trying to do that now. More, now than ever, is a time when I need to let go. I had given my ego back about 80% of what I had claimed a few years ago. I'm going after it again.
I know, in my heart of hearts, that my life is a very short blip on the time line of humanity's existence. I know I have a finite time. I know it's all bigger than me. Yet, at times, I feel like I have been cosmically wronged or that life isn't fair. Well, it's not, because there is no fair. It's all just part of existence. Your (mine actually) version of fair isn't what fair would be to the parents of a dying child. Nor is it the same as fairness to a teenager that doesn't get to stay out past midnight. It's all relative to your own existence, so, fairness really doesn't exist in any practical sense.
If you stop and compartmentalize your mind and realize that no matter what is going on in your life, there is a world that keeps moving and functioning. If you died this second, it all motors on. Without you. I realize I have a role to play. This life is my experience. It's my duty to the universe and you for me to fulfill my role. There is no need to fret, get angry, or depressed over any situation. We are human, so it will happen, but it's best for us and the people we know and come into contact with (if only briefly) if we can let go. Just do what you have to do to make your situation better or even just tolerable. It's all you can and will do after all. No amount of anger, worry, or frustration is going to change a situation, so you have to accept it and move forward knowing that this is what I have to do. This is my reality and I have to play it out. You are a character in everyone else's movie, just as they are in yours. I'm going to live up to my role. I'm going to let my character (who I am) emerge and let the chips fall where they may. Have a problem? Work on fixing it, but no need to get crazy with emotion over it. That won't help anything and it only serves to cloud judgement and impact others negatively. Why feel bad over something that is out of your control in a particular moment? In other words, I should strive to work on my problems when I'm dealing with them and not worry too much about them when there is nothing I can do. For example; feeling bad on Sunday night because work looms the next morning is wasting the present time on a time that hasn't arrived and is beyond your control.
It's all happening and it's all out of our control. Knowing that is a big step for me. Things work out they way they work out and that's all there is to it. There will be emotionally compromising moments. There will be set backs. I just hope I don't forget where I am right now. There is only one way to deal with life and that's by staying in the present as much as possible. Work towards future goals yes, learn from your past yes, but you can't live in that future, just as you can't live in the past. Now is always the time. And we can spend that time aimlessly looking at what might be or looking over our shoulder at what was. In either case, it takes us out of the now and the now is all we really have. It's all we have ever had.
Some ego stuff from the great philosopher Alan Watts. It's not necessarily relevant in a direct way to my previous words, but it's solid thinking.
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