I am joyful today. I have been feeling a bit down the last few weeks and it feels good to feel good again. It's not that I discovered anything new; on the contrary, what I remembered is as old as the race. What is true now and how always been true is that the degree to which we give into desire--the desire to have something more or different, the desire to have things be other than they are--is the degree to which we suffer. We try to change this equation, add complications, subtract realities, multiply difficulties, divide ourselves from the truth, but the equation remains the same. Circumstances may change, but it is not circumstances that create suffering. Our resistance to those circumstances creates suffering. Period.
What I was doing was grieving over things I cannot change. It is important for me to recognize the difference between aspiring to have things be different or to make changes that can realistically be achieved and the pointless rumination on the facts of my existence. I would suggest, though, that fretting is much more common than planning. The one can masquerade as the other, but the acid test for me is whether or not anything new is being discussed inside that echo chamber of my head. If not, then it really is just fruitless rehashing of old news. To what end?
The well-know Serenity Prayer asks that we have the courage to change the things we can, to accept the things we cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference. I believe that part of acceptance is to not continue asking the question once you have an answer unless new evidence arises. I am by nature a fretter and a planner, but have had to learn that these activities are just another form of desiring, specifically the belief that I will be safe if I can think really hard about the things that make me feel unsafe.l Somehow (so the theory goes) they will magically not happen if I think about them hard enough. This. Is. Not. True. I will still age. I will be ill. I will still die. Those I love will age, grow ill and die. Less dramatically, there are many more mundane things about my life I would have be other than they are. There are many things about myself I would have be other than they are. Some I can work to change. Some are more resistant to intervention. Some cannot be changed at all.
Everything begins with acceptance, though. When I can accept my life as it is in this moment, in that moment I am living in joy.
What I was doing was grieving over things I cannot change. It is important for me to recognize the difference between aspiring to have things be different or to make changes that can realistically be achieved and the pointless rumination on the facts of my existence. I would suggest, though, that fretting is much more common than planning. The one can masquerade as the other, but the acid test for me is whether or not anything new is being discussed inside that echo chamber of my head. If not, then it really is just fruitless rehashing of old news. To what end?
The well-know Serenity Prayer asks that we have the courage to change the things we can, to accept the things we cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference. I believe that part of acceptance is to not continue asking the question once you have an answer unless new evidence arises. I am by nature a fretter and a planner, but have had to learn that these activities are just another form of desiring, specifically the belief that I will be safe if I can think really hard about the things that make me feel unsafe.l Somehow (so the theory goes) they will magically not happen if I think about them hard enough. This. Is. Not. True. I will still age. I will be ill. I will still die. Those I love will age, grow ill and die. Less dramatically, there are many more mundane things about my life I would have be other than they are. There are many things about myself I would have be other than they are. Some I can work to change. Some are more resistant to intervention. Some cannot be changed at all.
Everything begins with acceptance, though. When I can accept my life as it is in this moment, in that moment I am living in joy.
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