Wake up…

Our jobs, our families, our homes and our social-lives* what else is there?
A lot of our energy is taken up with the above and indeed we cherish and put effort into maintaining “our” lives. Tending to our “gardens”, polishing our “treasures”, getting, doing, being.
Yes, I agree, there’s a lot of shit out there and some of it can take a great deal of patience, tolerance, acceptance and forgiveness. We work hard to make stuff right, ‘cos it matters.
However, there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ in between. Yes, it’s a cliché, but it’s vitally important.
We rush to and from these things, we fill the gaps with ‘stuff’ and perhaps don’t notice what we are hypnotically passing by.

John Lennon famously sang about his Beautiful Boy “life is what happens to you, While you’re busy making other plans”.

Indeed! And what Antony De Mello said is often true, “wake up”:
“Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know, Catholics, Christians, non-Christians, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare. “

“The best path to self-actualization is not to Become Your Dream; rather, it’s to Come to Terms with Your Nightmare” BikeSnob

Various things help to wake me up. It’s an ongoing thing – “’cos everything’s enchanting” isn’t it?

A few years ago, I attended a ‘speed awareness course’, following a minor indiscretion on the highway, officer (and a faulty speed-camera). Amongst other insightful discussions was the simple reminder that, when we’re travelling past or through somewhere, that “somewhere”, is often where other “people are, or live”. Often our journey, through a village, into the city, down the corridor, into town, through the kitchen, around an estate… is about a and b, and the path in between is overlooked – just a means to an end. But real-life is “going on” as we pass through/by!

Our world tends to get populated more and more by things, and not events and experiences.
When planning our lives, tidying the house, travelling to work or “the shop/s”, it’s too easy to neglect the journey: “what we are actually doing”. We’re often busy with something better, something shiny, something polished, something jingly and exciting(?), we’re busy making our plans.
We subscribe to various forms of distraction, tonics and chococoffeecelebritygossip. We buy into culture and the collective consciousness. Some of us have to occasionally sneak Aldi Cheeseballs into the basket. Some of us have to pop pills to stop the “busy-making-other-plans” taking over and crashing the machine. Some might need a good defrag. And we all need careful ongoing maintenance.
Some of us might be able to just stop all the clocks… and be truly thankful… but it’s harder and harder in this world of non-stop 24/7-365 interconnectivity.

Where am I going with this I don’t know…

But I am here, now, breathing…
I see my children growing and sleeping and I’m amazed at the miracle of life.
But I love it when they wake up, and, as children they do see lots that we miss!
When I do go to sleep I try and acknowledge a smile on my face – and I try to remember to truly “wake up” tomorrow.

“The best path to self-actualization is not to Become Your Dream; rather, it’s to Come to Terms with Your Nightmare” BikeSnob

(*for those with children, I’m told social lives do exist and will re-emerge you know!)