Today's
Meditation:
Sometimes
I'm guilty of this problem myself-- when I'm faced with
"free" time, I think of what kinds of productive
things I might do. Should I write something
more? Read something more? Add a few pages to
the website? Write a few more meditations? The
first thing that comes to mind usually consists of doing
something, achieving something. And that's not
necessarily a bad thing, because I really enjoy being
productive. I know from experience, though, that if
I don't maintain a balance and actually rest now and then,
I will suffer consequences later.
So
I do things that "don't matter." I go for
walks or bike rides, or I read something that's purely
recreational reading. I may watch a TV show or a
movie, or I may play solitaire or a video game.
Because as this unattributed author says, making life
enjoyable is very important to us if we're going to live
full and happy lives.
Where
do we get the ideas that life is about achieving?
Where do we get the ideas that we should be going through
our lives following the rules that other people-- many of
whom were very unhappy-- have made in our governments and
churches and schools? We lose much of the joy in
life when we adopt other people's ways of thinking and
chide ourselves for not following the rules they've set
down.
Sometimes
it's nice just to relax and do something fun. But on
the day we die, do we want our lives to have been something we can look back at as a whole
and see that we maintained a good balance between work and
rest and enjoyment, or do we want to have simply a list of
accomplishments? Our greatest achievement can
be our lives, but not if we don't pay attention to what
we're doing with them.
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