Mindfulbalance

We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination. This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something: the stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for.

It helps to see ourselves as flowers. If a flower were to push itself open faster, which it can’t, it would tear. Yet we can and often do push ourselves. When we push ourselves to unfold faster or more deeply that is natural, we thwart ourselves. For nature takes time, and most of our problems of will stem from impatience.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Even though at times we find daily work a challenge, life itself is the deeper reality flowing through us. Have we become too numb to notice this?

Though we strain

against the deadening grip of daily necessity, I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.

Who is living it, then?

Is it the things themselves, or something waiting inside them,

like an unplanned melody in a flute?

Is it the winds blowing over the waters?

Is it the branches that signal to each other?

Is it flowers interweaving their fragrances,

or streets, as they wind through time? 

Rainer Maria Rilke

Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know

you’ve attached to something not true for you.

Byron Katie