Over the years, we all adapt to living conditions, relationship situations and personal challenges. We begin to realize what makes us angry, what makes us happy and what helps us to survive the things in our lives we cannot control. We give up on some issues, take up the sword and fight other issues and let some things die a natural death.
We think back on the choices we've made in our lives and wonder if things would have been better or worse if we had chosen a different path. Undoubtedly, we will never know the answers to those ponderings, and therefore it's a little self-destructive and unhealthy to look back and question why we did the things we did. Living with one foot in the past, and one foot in the future doesn't leave much room for living in the now.
Living in the now is a lesson we could all take a refresher course on. I equate living in the now with how animals deal with their own personal deck of cards. A deer in the forest has one goal every morning they open their eyes, and that is to find food. Their instinct keeps them on their feet from day to day. They smell things, they sleep, they find protection, they eat and they reproduce. One day, whether through the natural course of their lifespan or by the unnatural course of man, they don't wake up any more and that's that. Is their life any less because they did not leap higher than another deer, or because they didn't have two fawns instead of one? Do you think deer actually have the cognitive reasoning to think, "Oops. Shouldn't have stepped out onto the median." Animals don't second-guess themselves.
But, people do. And we do it all the time.
We equate a successful life with that of being able to exchange our time for money, exchanging money for possessions and providing for our progeny a life better than our own. And yet, many of the other people that we admire and pay homage to did exactly the opposite, and still had what we call a successful life.
Henry David Thoreau was, in effect, a pauper and a hermit, and scampered off to a cabin in the woods to experience the day-to-day living in the now. Yet, he is considered one of the finest writers in any century. His name is revered in colleges and universities around the world.
Mother Theresa turned her back on the prosperity of modern living to live among lepers and outcasts. Because of her, many others felt comfort and peace within themselves. She is certainly successful – in her role as a human being.
St. Francis of Assisi, born into wealth, cast off his good fortunes and lived among animals, choosing to take each day and live within it with humility and love toward all creatures. Buddha teaches that the giving up of one's possessions frees the soul. Jesus humbled himself before all men, choosing not to take a throne or crown, but to walk among even the poorest and do good works.
What makes these people successful in our eyes? They had the courage to be who they were (and are), and to make the best use of their time here on earth. Each day to them was (and is) an new day and they can do good things or not. These people learned to accept who they were (and are) and to live in the now.
This isn't a rant about destiny or fate or karmic implications. It's an observation about how we act and react. It's a suggestion that perhaps we complicate our own lives by equating our self-worth with our accomplishments or earnings. It's a questioning of why we have the need to jumper higher than the other deer or have two fawns instead of one.
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