Lesson from a Younger Self

How rare to feel genuine satisfaction for even a minute in your life for who you are, who you’re with, where you are, what you’re doing. Wherever you are, the grass always seems greener over there. But even if you jumped the fence, you'd still have to mow it. And who knows what bugs lie hidden waiting to bite you?

 

We all need reminders to embrace the whole of our life more fully. And sometimes it comes from surprising places. Sometimes a former version of ourselves, a future version or even this morning’s version can help us remember the lesson. And isn’t it interesting that we carry all these teachers with us, that we can learn from our childhood innocence, our teenage confusion, our young adult conviction and passion, our mid-life befuddlement, our elder wisdom. All have something to offer at a different time and in a different way. 

 

And so this journal excerpt from my 27-year old self, speaking to me (and now, you) across the years about acceptance of everything within, before, besides and behind us:

 

Buddha’s first Noble Truth: Life is suffering. The poor are suffering from their want, the rich are suffering from their excesses. The single people are suffering from their loneliness, the couples from loss of independence.  The workers are suffering from their lack of leisure, the idle  from their lack of work. The sick are suffering from their illness, the healthy from the fear of sickness. The ugly long to be beautiful, the handsome pay the price of their beauty. The unknowns crave fame, the famous, anonymity. There isn’t a single condition in the human world that doesn’t have suffering as its companion. To acknowledge, receive and ultimately embrace both the suffering and joy inherent in one’s particular situation is to unite them both into a fuller understanding.