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Today's
Meditation:
But
who am I? Sometimes I think that no one in our culture
wants me to know the answer to this question, for if I feel
connected with myself, if I become content to accept myself
as I am, flaws and all, I may just stop buying things, and I
may stop helping to drive the consumer-driven economy that
we've devised. But making peace with myself means
accepting who I am--all the promise and potential and
strengths and weaknesses and successes and mistakes--
without judgment. Yes, I can recognize flaws and try
to fix them, but I don't judge myself when I do.
If
I'm at peace with who I am, then the material things around
me mean much, much less. I can have things that make
my life easier (my car's very helpful) or that help me to
save time (I love the microwave oven sometimes), but the
trick is to reach a point at which we don't really need
more. My car will last a while, and it gets me where I
want to go quite well. My computer is a bit old, but
it does its job well. A new one would be nice, but I'm
fine with the one I have, too.
I
think that one of the things that Doris is getting at is the
concept of accepting ourselves as someone who doesn't need
a new computer to be happy--we don't need the stronger,
faster one if the one we have does the jobs we need it to
do. We don't need the stronger, faster, shinier car if
the one we drive now does its job just fine--because I know
that my identity isn't wrapped up in what I drive or what I
have.
Our identities are precious things. If we identify
with things, then any improvement that we can imagine in our
lives necessarily involves "improvements" in the
things we have. If we're secure in our identities,
though, we can recognize when enough is enough, and spend
our time developing our selves rather than continuing to
play the game of collecting toys to make ourselves feel
better.
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