Meanwhile...

Who’s not at least flirting with overwhelm these days?

I hear this from friends every day. Whatever the personal details may be, the theme is the same: “There’s so much going on. It’s so intense…”

We could blame astrology. Age. Karma. Whatever, my sense is that this is just the surface layer of what’s really going on.

We live in a culture based on control. Money is the currency of control. We invented it as a convenience; it’s become a tool for manipulation. With money, you can do this or that. Without it, nope. But money is just an instrument of power. And power is control.

Forget about all that for a moment and consider nature. Who’s in control? Take your average forest. What’s the control system? There are a million systems with a trillion functions but none of them are imposed. They are natural and synergistic.

Species in nature live together without chaotic strife and unless we interfere, personally or through weather modification, technology, and habitation sprawl that alters natural environments, all these life forms just chug along… probably without excessive anxiety.

We don’t fit in with other species, we seek to control them. And everything else.

So, if we are increasingly anxious about the uncertainty in our lives perhaps it’s because we’re reaching a point where we simply can’t control things the way we used to.

Maybe we need to get used to the idea of living with uncertainty.

After all, what can we really be certain of? The sun will rise, the sun will set. Taxes will go up. All of us were born and we will die. What else?

Instead of flailing around, desperately exerting control, we could make something else a priority, something that we CAN be certain of.

That would be what we choose to express.

Imagine making this our priority. Watching, listening, sensing, imagining… entirely focused on what can we think, say, and do to increase love and harmony and all things worthwhile in this world.

Meanwhile, your back is hurting. Meanwhile, a friend just lost money in a bad investment. Meanwhile, some politician reneged on a campaign promise (big surprise there).

Meanwhile…

It’s all “meanwhile.” Secondary. Not the priority.

Suddenly everything changes. All that stuff that we’ve been stressing to control becomes kinda like the weather. It’s happening. We may wish it were different, but it is what it is.

Meanwhile… that’s all it is. It’s just happening in the background. The foreground is all about our contributions, mostly small, mostly invisible, the way we are being.

Reminds me of a great comment someone made: “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

What if being became more important than doing?

What if?

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