Our world is constantly clamoring for our attention: texts, phone calls, emails, advertisements; then the kids want something from us too. Not to mention our significant other and family and friends.
We can be lost in this morass of stuff, the content of our lives.
The demands of living day-to-day can swallow up our attention so much that we don’t know who we are and what we want out of life. By clinging to survival, we do the next thing then the next that will assure we will meet all the demands of life.
Step Back
There may be rare moments when we step back and wonder where we are going with all this.
Some of us may deliberately take the time and get the guidance to plan where we are with our lives and where we want to go. But it may take a crisis of health or relationship or finances to get to that point.
Otherwise, we mindlessly follow through with what we think society demands of us, what our parents want for us, or rebel against all of it.
One way of rebelling may be to drop out and get by in the best way we know how. It may be by relying on other people or secluding ourselves and not needing much.
Sadly, we stay lost in Stuff
Most often, I see people following what they think they must do in order to succeed in life. Work the job, marry the sweetheart, have the kids, provide everything according to the values we hold.
It may seem like life is just running on the hamster wheel in order to get to the next day, then the next, then the much-needed vacation, then a vacation from the vacation, back again.
By filling our lives with the stuff we think we need to live, we begin to live to serve that stuff. We make the money to pay off the latest technology, keep up with entertainment, advance in the job and give more lavish gifts to the sweetheart.
When the stuff of life swallows us up, we may lose sight of our life purpose. We mindlessly fulfill our obligations and may miss the joy in it.
Escaping Stuff
We may then seek extreme sports or vacations to exotic locations or alcohol and recreational drugs because that is where we have glimpsed a more joyful state before and wish to re-create it.
Or perhaps it is simply to escape the hamster wheel and feel alive at all that we seek these other outlets.
We have missed the forest for the trees.
Finding Meaning
What we are forgetting is that there is a context to life. There is a space in which all of this is happening, which gives meaning to our lives.
This context, the ground of our being, is always here, always supporting us, guiding us, gently nudging us to realize who we are in this world.
We can experience it when we step back from the stuff of our lives and get quiet.
Ordinarily, we may or may not be aware of this beneficial presence which is the context of our lives.
Or we may ignore it when we are swallowed up by the details of life.
We can be oblivious to it when we focus on what we need to do to survive.
Experiencing the context
We may become aware of it in rare moments in which we feel fully alive.
These moments may come when we are in nature, or “in the zone” in our sport, or in intimate moments such as during making love or at the birth of a child. It is as if time stops, everything feels like it is in its place, and this is how things are meant to be.
However, this fades sooner or later, and we return to our “normal” life.
Yet, the context is here, full of love and ideas and gentleness and aliveness, making sure we more than survive, that we thrive in style. It is precisely this thriving aliveness we are attempting to re-experience when we get off on drugs or a runner’s high or at a music concert.
We often think we need to do something or other in order to experience this kind of aliveness, yet it is at our fingertips, closer than our next breath, every day, in every moment.
Take a Moment
It is possible to live through the details of our life in this context. When we do that, the awareness dawns that life is working to our benefit.
Stop trying so hard. Stop focusing on the stuff of life and widen your attention to a bigger picture.
By resting back and allowing life to be lived through us, the details of our life have a chance to fall into place. We are able to live life from wholeness, being fulfilled in all aspects of life.
Then we have a chance to realize our purpose here, which is not to accumulate more stuff.
We feel most whole when we are living our life purpose and experience the richness that life has to offer. This richness encompasses all aspects of our lives: relationships, work in the world, community, personal growth, and everything we ever wanted.
Real Fulfillment
There is a place inside everyone which knows that this is how life is meant to be lived. Too often it is obscured by the stuff of our lives.
However, it is always nudging us to heed this context as that is where we are most whole.
It is the only place we can hope to have health and fulfillment.
Learn more about resting into this place in my book Antidote to Overwhelm.
