Existence is kind to every one of us. Even you.
Wait, give me a moment to duck.
Because most likely mind wants to argue the crap out of that first sentence. Maybe even beat me up a little for it.
“No way, Judy!” you may be saying. “I don’t know what privileged life you lead, but life is not kind to me. I suffer. Look at this pain. Look at this depression, look at this trauma, failure, loneliness, lack of money. What about all the times I’ve been stabbed in the back, what about all the treachery and evil of others in my life?
And what about all those poor people in Syria and the people shot in their own back yards and the people with cancer? You call that “good life?” You’re smoking something.”
Now hang on a minute. If you’re going to go there, don’t leave out my favorite outrage, the time-honored, “You’re not validating my pain!”
Because despite the near-constant attention we give suffering- sitting with it, feeling it, embodying it, speaking with it- it's never enough. We’ve apparently also gotta have “validation” (whatever that is) from other folks whose pain is, naturally, nothing compared to ours.
Such a drama queen, the mind.
Annnyyyway…
With all that going on, thought can devotedly focus on all the miseries, and happily ignore all the countless hours- years really- of non-miseries.
Because yes, no matter what thought says, non-trauma is indeed here. In fact, the vast percentage of life is and has been non-hurting.
No need to take my word for it. Think about your own life- including time spent sleeping and cutting toenails and rocking babies and chopping vegetables and folding laundry. Add in the times you laughed, were in love (even if only briefly), put on pants, smelled spring in the air. Then look at the total percentage of life that is not painful.
What percentage would you give it- 50%? 80%?
Even if it’s 20%, does that non-misery time not count at all?
I mean, it’s what you want, right?
Besides, if pain needs validation, then not-pain should also need validation.
Or is only misery worthy of acknowledgement?
Oh silly humans, finding non-pain completely uninteresting even though it’s what we claim to want.
Kind of crazy, yet also understandable. Because mind needs a problem, something to think about, something to solve.
That means any situation or feeling that doesn’t need solving is quickly dismissed. Non-problem? Not interesting.
Plus, we get high on suffering. Not high as in, “Wheee!” but still souped up, marinated in the adrenaline and other body chemicals induced by drama.
Admitted or not, humans are full-on addicted to emotionality. So when necessary, we’ll drum up whatever “This is not ok!” problem will do the job to keep the juice going.
We are completely used to that chemical soup. We miss it big time when it isn’t there.
We call that "empty, bored, unmotivated."
We want our hit. And only drama can deliver that. The mind can’t get drunk on peace.
Which explains the perpetual yearning for okness while pointedly ignoring whatever percentage of it is already here.
And which also explains how we don’t notice that life is indeed good even when there’s pain going on.
Because when you think about it, everyone has experienced times where what felt like the end of the world at the time turned out later to have been, in hindsight, a blessing. Though of course we sobbed, hated, and cursed throughout.
So yes humans focus on misery, and yes we insistently ignore the amazingness of breath, air, gravity, skin, lilacs, internal organs, and puppies and yes we hurt hurt hurt.
And even so, when we can notice the actual instead of our demands, preferences, expectations and shoulds, we discover that the present is... good enough. As it is. Without solutions, without fix-its.
Even those who are apparently in extreme situations find this okness, when they aren't sucked into and blinded by drama soup.
Existence is good. In actuality. In this moment. For us all, including you.
And when we’re willing to pay attention to anything more than misery for even a moment, what's been here all along becomes quite clear.
Acknowledged or not, peace is right here, relief is right is here, okness is right here, goodness is right here.
It’s what we say we want.
Here it is.
Right here.
Right now.
And now.
And now.
And now.
