What if we could be someone else? Whose problems would we rather have?
I recently took a rare break to have coffee with a friend whose bright and happy soul I have always enjoyed spending time with. At one point she talked enviously about how exciting my life had been with various thrilling careers and living in different exotic places in unexpected ways –and she’s right. I have enjoyed a wonderful and very unconventional life.
But like all lives, an exciting one has its associated prices. But those prices are often invisible to others, which is why comparison is a risky ego activity in any case.
Sometimes with lives the prices tip toward boredom, other times danger. In fact, choosing between the appeal of each was largely the point at the heart of the book and film, The Bridges of Madison County. What’s better; boring but reliable? Or exciting but risky?
Individuality is where we set our balance between the two, but even then –most of us would move that line on a daily basis, based on what was going on and how we felt. So it’s not like there’s a ‘right’ place for that line.
As someone who’s had an exciting life, if I was going to trade lives I’d likely pick a life like hers. After all, her route did make her the happy soul whose company I enjoy. That’s all that counts; the results. And I’ve done the other thing.
Dress shoes or sports shoes, the style of our walk through life is irrelevant. Our appreciation for our journey through life will depend more on our attitude more than our lifestyle.
We have to be someone. Both our history and our consciousness will combine to subconsciously decide who we end up as. That person simply cannot be wrong. But we can think we are wrong to be us. The trick is, even that questioning of our Selves is a part of us being fully ourselves.
It is important to accept our psycho-spiritual struggles as a part of our path. Those challenges do not mean that we are lost, they only mean that everyone’s individual path is formed by engaging in the struggles that each of us individually feels are truly worth it. Our strange enthusiasm for some challenges versus others is essentially what defines the values that frame our path.
Let us forget all of our comparative, judgmental thinking. No one needs to change as much as we need to accept who we are and then surrender into the idea of truly letting that person go.
Enjoy your day by making it as conscious as possible. Namaste.
peace, s
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.
