I was told a story the other day by a friend of mine. It goes (roughly) like this... A man is told that money grows on trees in Chicago. He takes a train to Chicago. He gets off of the train and looks down. What does he see? A $50 bill. Does he pick it up? No. Why? Because he believes, despite the fact that he needs the money desperately, that he will find more money as he embarks on his journey.
Why is it that we never want to look at what it right in front of us? Why are we so conditioned to doubt, deny or question something that may be exactly what we need or want when it is sitting right before us? Are we conditioned to believe that anything worth having must require work, struggle, pain? Would just accepting and going with the flow of things be so hard? Maybe that is the lesson we need though. Maybe it is about acceptance, embrace, and, ultimately, yielding to what life is handing us. Handing us. That goes so so directly against everything we are told is true about the things in life worth "having."
Nothing just falls in your lap.
Good things come to those who wait.
But perhaps everything we experience and survive to this point is preparation for what is right in front of us. Maybe that IS the lesson...I guess it all comes down to S L O W I N G down and being in the present...REALLY being in the present moment...it is truly all we have...the past is over, the future unknown...that, I must get more comfortable with.
Forget Hank's wacky classes, this is my current life assignment.
6 comments:
When I slow down - I mean really S L O W down, I listen and appreciate more. I think that's kinda happening to me now.
You can't do the same thing all the time. Fast, slow, .. mix it up. Its all a game of chance and sometimes you get lucky. Plus it's not like you have any choice/control over it. You grow either way, complacency is the killer.
"We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future. Suburbia lives imaginatively in Bonanza-land."
-Marshall McLuhan (my imaginary husband)
I've always had this issue of seeing the past in superior light to the present. For some reason, its really hard for me to appreciate the present until its over with. I also strive for the future rather than appreciating what I have NOW.
I do agree that good things comes to those who wait. I really sure hope its true. I feel I'm at the back of the line watching all those who get off the ride with smiles on their face.
Well, Aud, they say hindsight is 20/20...but I would argue that when we are really PRESENT...really living in the moment, we can achieve that kind of clarity, too. It is just that most of us are looking/reaching ahead and not simply being present.
Whew.
I've got nothing intelligent to add.
But I also have an imaginary husband (John Stewart).
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