Opting
Out
“I'm
going to enjoy every second and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it
while I'm enjoying it...”
Jean
Webster
It's Monday morning. Most
of us are slugging down some coffee, pulling up our big-girl/big-boy
britches, and heading out to join the rat race. I hope you love what
you do, because if you don't a huge chunk of your life is sacrificed.
Perhaps the way to transform that is to change the way you look at
it, the way you think about it. When a job is not particularly
gratifying—and all of us have had them—we can think of it as a
means to an end, a bridge between what is necessary now to get to
something we will like better in the future. Or perhaps, we could
simply learn to be content wherever we are, whatever we are doing.
One of the lessons of mindfulness is being aware moment to moment of
our surroundings and letting ourselves know that we are okay. We can
say to ourselves, “In this moment, I have everything I need. I
can choose to be happy about that, or I can choose to be unhappy that
I don't have more. I choose to be happy.” Often, the way we
frame our circumstances is what causes us distress and not the
circumstances themselves.
There's one more thing
about joining the rat race—as Lily Tomlin says, “even if you
win, you're still a rat.” Some of us spend way too much time
trying to reach some faraway goal; we get so caught up in our
struggle to get there, that we miss all the good things along the
way. As Jean Webster describes it, people “lose sight of the
beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through.” All the
wealth and all the power will not make up for missing our children
growing up. One day, we wake up and they're off to college and we
wonder how on earth that happened. I tell you this from the
perspective of age—my sons recall stories about their childhood
that I have no memory of, and I wonder where I was—what was more
important than participating in their lives? Was the rat race really
so gratifying?
When I walked out on the
porch this morning, the entire eastern sky was brilliant pink. It's
going to be a beautiful day. I plan to be there, enjoying it, and
knowing that I'm enjoying it. I hope you will be there, too.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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