…life is complicated, it bites, it hurts and it makes you cry like hell. It travels you from agony to bliss and backwards in just a blink of an eye, heading you in all directions. But it’s up to you which path you choose; it’s up to you how you look at it. You can choose the nostalgia of the good old times or dream about a promising future, or you can just choose to live in the now and seize the moment. We cannot change the past anyway and the future is just an illusion, right? Despite wisely knowing that, we still suffer and hang between these two dimensions, specialising ourselves in “film making scenarios”.
So, how can we get out of this vicious circle? How can we control our mind and do not let her wander around messing with ourselves? How can we make our mind more like a friend than an enemy?
Just accept and surrender, do not fight it anymore, do not rush towards anything and stop making plans God would laugh at! Take a break, relax & rewind, meditate and most importantly breathe deeply the smell of life, notice its stillness and greenness.
It’s not life, but our perspective of life which causes our suffering, Buddha said. Easier said than done, right?
But life is not something which is happening to us, it’s not a bitch or a fairy just because of external higher powers. It is more of a consequence of our thoughts, words, actions and feelings. So we should open our eyes and mind and be more responsible about it.
The most common mistake we make is to identify ourselves with all these thoughts and words and feelings that overwhelm our body, mind and soul. Moreover, we take all the roles we were given in life and let them define us, let them tell us who we are. But why, why do we burden our shoulders with all these family traditions and programming till we even forget why we are here, who we really are and what is our mission? It surely is not just to procreate and make children, or build bridges and successful careers, or even to fill our brain with extensive knowledge we are to afraid to use afterwards. Is our true mission in life to experience love, compassion and connection, to have a real contribution in the world and make a difference or is that just pure ego? Do we need grief to grow?
I think we accept all these “bullshit” rules in our lives because of fear, because we are afraid we could lose the love of our family, friends and their validation. We are afraid of dying alone, even if, in the end, that’s what’s happening and we could make peace with it too.
The truth is it takes a lot of hard work and inner strength to find hope in despair, to see the light at the end of a long and dark tunnel, to find a smile between burning tears or see the rainbow behind the storm. It’s even harder to find our true selves and accept who we truly are, beyond all these conventions.
But my limited life experience and knowledge has brought me to this outcome: the answer to all these questions is within us, it is in the now, in the impermanence and the beauty of the present moment. We do not have to look very far, listen too closely and struggle all the time, but we do need tons of courage and confidence to open our heart, free the mind’s thoughts and take care of our precious body.
Till we find the right balance and truly see the magnificence of life.