So I didn’t become famous at 25!
I didn’t even own my 1st house at 30. (Some people just take a little longer, do it differently, or don’t do it all!)
Let’s face it—we don’t know if there will be a tomorrow, or how long it will last. Does this make me any less…or any more?
Outward successes are great, nothing wrong with owning a great big house, or having a gorgeous family, or being featured on the nine o’clock news. Yet, if you equate success with the achievement of a goal or the achievement of other people’s goals, then you set yourself up to fail.
No-one can achieves everything they want all of the time.
Respect. A luxury sportscar. Investments. A house. Fame. Abundant cash.
I realize that none of these things matter. Unless they matter to you.
They are just choices you make.
Some people think I’m lucky to have lived in Vietnam and Australia. Some people secretly wish they could escape to the Old City of Jerusalem for their own spiritual odyssey.
Some people wish they had my independence, the freedom to travel and see the world. I often just crave stability, yet when I find it, I want to escape, too.
Isn’t it crazy that everyone desires and envies what they don’t have!
Some people would give everything they have to have their health back, or to have a loving family, or to have kids.
When we come from a position of wholeness, and realize that we already have everything we need, we become “an integrated wholeness”—embracing our own essential wholeness.
We are everything we wish for.
We are everything we don’t wish for.
We are all that—and beyond.
Photo: David G Arenson NDI have never met anyone who doesn’t want more.
It’s a natural human trait, that enfolds the human spirit, to want more and to want to contribute more. There’s nothing wrong with this quality. Human nature is natural, and exquisitely magical.
However, we also need to recognize that we may spend our whole existence in a constant state of yearning unless we consciously embody wholeness. What I mean by this is being okay with nothing, being okay with everything, being okay just with who we are, and being okay with exactly what we have (nothing more, nothing less).
I know it’s not easy to take a deep breath and just be okay with exactly how your life is (not how your life is becoming, but how it actually is). That’s why practices like yoga, mindfulness and cultivating stillness play such a vital role in appreciating the moment how it is.
I am not writing this to cheer myself up (although that’s a by-product). I am writing to encourage you to be okay with wherever you’re at.
Add to your experience by doing what I call “positive living” by adding happy activities like walking the dog, yoga, practicing mindfulness and gratitude and healthy eating habits.
Yet realize, that it doesn’t make you empty if you miss a yoga session, it doesn’t make you a failure if you indulge in that chocolate milkshake.
You are whole and complete whether you are swimming, limping or staying in bed the whole day.
I am okay (without the wife, without the house, without the kids.)…I am okay.
In fact I am more than okay, I am awesome!
And you are amazing just as you are!
Photo by David G Arenson NDEditor: Lynn Hasselberger
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