What is life? Some might call it suffering, others might call it joy. Still, others may call it an experience. A tremendously extravagant and often aggravatingly dysfunctional ride with ups and downs, loopbacks, sidewinders, and twisty goos. In reality, despite how you feel about this rollercoaster, we are but a breath.
We are a simple inhale, followed by a simple exhale, after which we dissipate back into the ether whence we came.
A few months ago, I was sitting on a beach staring at the Pacific Ocean watching the waves roll in one after the other. I began to think about how each wave is a reflection of our lives as humans.
They roll in small, almost unnoticeable, then they grow and grow and grow, and before we know it, they’re at their peak, crashing down and pushing their energy as far forward as possible.
A moment later they’re being pulled back into the great unknown.
We as humans follow the same pattern. We’re born from the unknown. We live life on this amazing, wonderful planet for a brief moment, and then we’re pulled back into the deep.
Regardless of what life you live, good or bad, joyful or full of suffering, your ride will end before you know it.
You started on one side of the platform, stepped into the car, pulled the harness down, and were sent into the fray. Soon you’ll be arriving back to the platform, lifting the harness, and stepping out onto the other side.
Your friends and family will all wave goodbye. There will be laughter. There will be tears. There may be pain.
Ultimately, it won’t matter, because you’ll close your eyes, take a deep breath, let go of the hands you’re holding, and drift away, just like that ocean wave being pulled home.
Life, as you know it, will be forever changed.
I’m 41 years old as I write this. Never before have I felt the weight of certain mortality bearing down on me as I do now.
On one hand, it’s terrifying. On the other hand, a sense of peace permeates my being knowing that fighting is futile.
Death Comes for Us All
However, the question that pervades my mind now is, am I really living? If we are but a breath, if our timespan is truly so short, am I living, fully alive, or am I wandering through on the edge of my own existential crisis as I strap suffering to my back because I’m too afraid to let go and just be?
Predominantly, throughout the majority of my life, I have carried around suffering as a badge of honor. Covered in paraphernalia of my perceived hardships. The ultimate warrior, trudging through his own mental foibles in an attempt to seem relevant, with hundred-pound sandbags saddled around my neck, grasped in my hands, and tied to my ankles as I wander through life searching for meaning and purpose.
Never mind the trail of lost potential cluttering the road behind me. Those days are dead and gone. As Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead.”
He then followed that statement with, “…but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
In the context of this dissertation, we will take this to mean; that the past is gone, but you can still live life to the fullest starting now.
Now Is the Time to Live
Waiting for another moment inevitably delays your chance to experience the wonderment life can bring. Life blossoms at every moment. Life exudes its wonderful fragrance with each tick, tick of the second hand on the clock.
We must stop waiting for life to happen and realize that it is happening NOW. Everything we could ever want is happening right now.
All the joy in the world is available to you right now. All the peace in the world is available right now if you take the time to notice it.
I’ve been watching videos about crows and other birds lately, and the immensity of their intelligence is awe-inspiring. It’s simple to overlook the vast degree of consciousness on that level, but it is consciousness nonetheless.
Animals on every level display a certain degree of consciousness that defies our human understanding. It’s so deep and mysterious. Watch a spider build a web, it’s an amazing feat, yet they do it over and over again. Watch how it catches its prey, stunningly beautiful in all its brutality.
Look at the ants and how they operate within their societies. Scientists have done excavations on ant colonies in an attempt to see to what extent these creatures are capable of. They’ve uncovered huge, intricate, underground metropolises that were created by these little creatures.
None of these creatures judge their actions. They aren’t waiting for something to happen, they are perfectly attuned to the moment and are content to just be.
Instead of waiting for life to happen to us, know that it is already happening.
Are you missing it?
Are you too focused on your suffering to be able to witness the weaving interplay of life?
Have you lost sight of what truly matters?
How many times during your day, or week, are you taking to be truly inspired by all the amazing things around you?
When was the last time you contemplated a flower, a blade of grass, a beetle, a bird, a car, or airport infrastructure (I’m not joking, the next time you’re at a large airport traveling between terminals, or when you taxi in or out, look at everything going on, imagine how you would organize the hundreds of planes, thousands of passengers, all the destinations, luggage transport, etc. It’s mind-blowing that we get to where we’re supposed to go, usually, on time, and most of the time, with our luggage arriving with us. This is a stupid example, yet at the same time, extremely profound because of the intricate details needed to create such an operation.) And yet, for the most part, this amazing dance goes unnoticed. It goes unappreciated.
Most things are treated this way.
Usually, we are more focused on the things that cause us our perceived suffering than we are on the things that deserve our appreciation. What would life be like if we switched these two things around?
After all, your moment is almost up. Death stands knocking at your door. With every breath, each of us takes one step closer to that door.
Eventually, you’ll place your hand on the doorknob and you’ll begin to turn. In the next moment, you’ll close the door and leave hand in hand with something most people fear all their lives.
We Fear Death Because We Don’t Understand It.
Death, however, is merely a part of life. You can’t have darkness without light. You can’t have life without death.
Even if you were to live for a thousand years, what would it matter? Death would still be standing at the door waiting for you.
Living for a thousand years wouldn’t change anything about your life anyway, would it? If you can’t overcome your current suffering, wouldn’t that just continue over the course of the millennia?
Longing for death isn’t the way to go either. Are you just going to live out your days, miserable, holding out until the end because you’re too afraid to end it all now?
I’m not advocating that you commit suicide, far from it! I’m advocating that we stop living from the heavier base emotions that cause our perceived suffering, and to learn to live a life of joy.
You Focus On What You Focus On
Choices for living life come in two options. Living a life of joy, or living a life of suffering.
Which do you prefer?
If you focus on the suffering, then you should only expect to continue to experience more suffering.
However, if you are able to move past the suffering and focus on joy, then you can learn to cultivate and experience a greater abundance of joy. Your mind is the battlefield where you get to decide the life you want to live.
Initially, this may take time. If you’re unused to living from a place of joy, you will most likely wade through suffering with a few glimpses of joy here and there.
This doesn’t have to be the case though. You can accelerate this process by becoming aware.
Awareness of this moment can take you from suffering to joy. Not because your circumstances suddenly change, but because you become aware that they are just circumstances.
Issues with not cultivating awareness stem from our minds. Our thoughts pervade our awareness and cause us to think that “we are” because of our thoughts.
As Rene Descartes declared, “I think therefore I am.”
The erroneous embodiment of this idea has been the bane of humankind’s existence since the beginning of time.
I do not think, therefore I am. I am, therefore I think.
Problems arise out of the thinking mind. Our world is on the brink of every disaster imaginable as we are in service to our thinking minds. Our ego drives this process forward and is responsible for all the wars and calamities this world has ever experienced.
We are potentially on the brink of World War III, and for what? So some maniacal egocentric fools can lay claim to more land to ease the internal pain of feeling inconsequential? So they can feel adored and accepted by their sycophants, who, by the way, want to take their place at the head of the empire, all because they never learned how to find satisfaction, harmony, and love within themselves?
We are on a knife’s edge of our world becoming something truly remarkable, or utterly destroyed.
The, “I think therefore I am.” mentality is what’s led us to where we are right now. Where could the, “I am, therefore I think.” lead us in the future?
When you step outside of your mental processes, you begin to see the real you. The eternal you.
Most of us are so entrenched in our minds and our thought processes, that we think this is who I am. What I think about myself is true. In reality, it’s usually false.
Try this short exercise and see if you can get a glimpse of what I’m talking about.
Close your eyes and listen intently to the sounds around you. Notice the tick of the clock, the flow of air, the sound of someone breathing, the passing cars, children playing, birds chirping.
After listening for a moment, focus on your own body. How do you feel? Don’t think about how you feel, notice how you feel. Bring your awareness to it. Feel the air moving in and out of your lungs as you breathe. Feel it enter and exit through your nostrils. Don’t think about it. Feel it. Become it.
Listen to the silence between noises. Experience those moments as well. When you finish, bring yourself back to the present, and now think about how you felt during that simple exercise.
If you were truly able to focus, then you will have noticed your thinking mind ceased and the eternal awareness within you revealed itself.
Try this exercise too. Go outside and fully invest yourself in what you see. It doesn’t matter where you are either. You could be in the country, on a mountain, in a busy city, it really doesn’t matter because beauty can be found in everything.
Go outside, let go of your thoughts, and focus on your senses. Again, don’t think about it, feel it. Experience it.
Notice the wind flowing over your skin. Listen to the sounds of nature or the sounds of the city.
Become aware of the beauty of your surroundings, whether you marvel at the nature around you or at the man-made wonders we call cities. Become a part of it. Feel the energy of it.
There’s a reason people are attracted to certain cities. It’s because there’s an energy about the place that excites them. The same goes for the mountains, oceans, and countryside.
How do you feel after doing the above exercise? Do you exist because you think, or do you think because you exist?
What would your life be like if you were able to just exist, if you were able to just be in the present moment without judgment?
Everything in the world lives in the present moment except for human beings. We time travel to the past and future and spend more time thinking about things we can no longer change, or things that may or may not happen.
Instead of staying aware and being present in the here and now, which contains the joy and peace we are so desperately seeking, we saddle ourselves with the sufferings of our past and future.
You are not your thoughts. You may be acting out the story your thoughts deliver to you, but you are not your thoughts.
Something far greater than you could ever imagine is what comprises the visage we call You. Me. I. We. Us.
Joy is a choice. Peace is a choice. Love is a choice. Pain and suffering are inevitable, yet they can be overridden by choosing to accept the present moment for what it is and choosing the joy, peace or love found therein.
Remember, We Are but A Breath.
You will be gone in a few short moments. Everything you do know will eventually fall to ruin in some near or distant future. Someone else will come along and take up the mantle of suffering in an attempt to find peace and joy, and your body will lie somewhere in the dirt.
Your spirit may transcend our physical world, but your actions, as you know them today will cease to exist. You will eventually be forgotten. A rare few may be remembered by an even rarer select few several millennia from now, but by that time, the people of that age won’t really care.
Our stories will be simple flights of their imagination to give them a respite from their daily struggles as they themselves search for meaning.
Instead of spending the rest of your life searching for meaning, why not embrace the power of your awareness to live in the present moment?
Lay down what you think you know. Lay down the stories you’ve created for yourself.
Begin to live life from the perspective that you think because you are. It brings a whole new definition to who you are as a physical being.
Take time to practice awareness. Do the simple exercises I mentioned every day and watch as you begin to break away from the stories you’ve written for yourself.
Start to experience the vast potential and energy surging through you, which has always been surging through you since the day you were born.
Moment by moment, change your perceptions of reality. Lay down your burdens one by one. Some will be easier to let go of than others.
Give yourself grace and time. Be patient and don’t try to reach the finish line all at once. The greatest long-distance athletes are the ones disciplined enough to pace themselves. The ones who can set aside pride to be the first out of the gate as they play the long game with the intention of being the first to cross the finish line.
I know this was on the darker side of things, but sometimes you have to go through the dark to see the light.
Please share this with someone who needs to hear the message. I hope you join me on this journey of self-discovery so that together, we can work to change the world from the inside out.
Much love to you all.
Josiah
