Today's
Meditation:
I
can't even begin to count the minutes and the hours that
I've wasted worrying about things that just didn't
matter. I might have said something that I though
offended someone, and then spent days worrying that the
person was mad at me. Then I'd see that person, and
not only wasn't he or she mad at me, but they had completely
forgotten what I'd said. Or I'd be a couple of minutes
late for something and I'd be afraid that I'd be "in
trouble," only to arrive and find out that not only
hadn't things started yet, but not everyone had shown
up. Sometimes I've even been one of the first ones
there.
These
worries keep us blind to the beauty that is in all of our
lives all of the time. When my mind is focused on
possible problems, how in the world can I expect to see
beautiful things? With practice, I've learned to let
those beautiful things take my mind away from the worry, but
it's taken a lot of work to be able to reach that point.
It's
kind of funny, isn't it, that we have to learn how
beautiful life is. It seems that this is something
that should come naturally to us, that we should see all the
time. And I think we do when we're younger--as kids we
tend to be pretty constantly awe-stricken, marveling at the
great things of this great world.
But
then the worries get in the way. Then we get busy and
we focus on other things--things to do, things to buy,
things to see, things to accomplish. And we lose sight
of the beauty. But it doesn't have to be so.
Sometimes I think that much of our adult life is spent
trying to unlearn things we learn in adolescence. And
sometimes, our best teachers are the children, who do see
the beauty and wonder of the world.
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