This one’s going to be to the point. 🙂
This past week, I attended a meditation retreat – no phones, no Internet, no television. I lived. And, I don’t mean that in the context of, “I survived”, but rather, “I lived”. I wasn’t just “alive”.
During my time away, I really did my best to leave behind the “real world” and fully embrace the nature around me, the beauty in silence and the personal growth involved with introspection.
My humble conclusion – we’re zombies.
We sure do a lot of stuff, but I’m not sure we know why. We just kinda do, because that’s what we do. Doesn’t make it wrong, but it doesn’t make it right, either.
I’ve decided to start asking myself why I do the things I do. And, when I give myself the answers to those questions, I want them to be, “because this reflects my true self”, or “it will make somebody smile”, or “because it will make the world a better place”. I don’t think it’s entirely realistic to expect every answer to be one of those right away, but I think it’s a start. No one finished a marathon the first day they learned to run.
So, I think I’ve decided to stop being a zombie. But, I’m going to lead by example and still Love the zombies. Because zombies need Love, too.
be Love.
Wow, I have never thought about what I will do if I don’t have internet and my phone :). I only have the feeling that sometimes I want to run away to a small town and live there for a couple of days with internet and phone 🙂 Not sure if I fully understand your post and sorry this is because English is not my first language. I have no problem at school and work here by using English; but some English literature requires native level to fully understand. Anyways I think I get what you are saying. I used to tell my friends that I feel like an empty bottle before I came to Canada. I mean life in my home country was “formulized” or “programed”; my life from junior middle school to high school are “2 points connected with 1 line”: home and school connected with one line. Although each day I learned new stuff at school and was able to talk to my friends, but I didn’t feel like I had lived the best out of my life. That feeling is one of the major reasons I want to come to Canada and see the world from a different angle. As I growed up and I sometimes feel life is like a glass of water and I want to have some excitement; I mean my life should have different taste rather than just water. Then for now I come to a conclusion that before I came to Canada, I was right that I stopped my “formulized” or “programed” life; but it is ok for most of my life to be like water as I can’t expect each day in my life to be full with excitment. The feeling of my life like a glass of water is fine as the taste of water is also part of life and a form of love. We need water just as much as we need love in our life. I like and agree with one of your answers that “it will make somebody smile”; and I also wish you are surrounded by people who would like to make you smile as you are a wonderful person. Have a nice week and take care!
I think your analogy of water and Love is wonderful. On the surface, we may think water is simple and plain and boring, but on a physical level, we need it to live. Its simplicity is what makes it perfect. It provides to us what we need without anything fancy or dressed up. When we find Love in its purest form, it is exactly the same. It doesn’t need any disguises or masks to be its most powerful, it just needs to be exactly what it is, Love.
See that glass of water as the life-giving Love in your life and just try to do your best that it’s always overflowing. 🙂
Thank you for your really great post!
Just realized that I haven’t finished with my previous posted comments 🙂 What I was trying to say that we all at some point in our life were wondering if we really have been doing something meaningful? If these are really what we want in our lives? And for the next 20 or 30 years? Sometimes the more we think about it, the more we become nervous and anxious. I think it is good that at least we have thought about it and probably will continue to think about it. As long as we live in a comfortable and peaceful life style, it should be fine? Then along the way, we can come up with some ideas to make our living for a better reason? I am still think about it. All right and good night!
Today I have given some thoughts about why we are doing what we are doing now besides to survive. We work not only to financially support ourselves, but devote to a career that we are interested at or even love it. The world population is over 7 billion and it is amazing we are meeting certain of them in our lives and I always wonder if there is a reason why I get to meet and know this person but not the other. The interaction and communication with other people (parents, friends and lovers etc) help us to gain experience of how to live and how to love. Some of the experience has brought us happiness and some of them may have hurt us. Because of the mixture of different experience and feelings, which have made our lives so beautiful and full with love. I feel lucky of living in a life that is safe and peaceful. I will continue to meet new people and hopefully develop good friendship and maintain the current friendship with my current friends. Because there are over 7 billion people in the world, sometimes I do feel that meeting certain of them is so precious and I have been trying to be nice and friendly to most of them. This wonderful feeling make me happy and loved. Take care and continue enjoying your life. I am sure your life is full with love.
I think all of the experiences we have and people we meet are important. It’s just a matter of us wanting to have that perspective. My belief is that everything that happens to us is an opportunity to learn. Sometimes, it’s something very small that we barely notice and other times it’s something so big we can’t not notice it. Every step we take is because that is the path we are helping create for ourselves. We can view a negative experience as bad, or we can say, “what did I learn from that?” and, “how did it make me better?” or, “what direction is this helping me move in?”
Because of how most of our lives are structured, we usually have to work to financially support our life. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be our life’s work. More and more, I am viewing my reason for being here as an opportunity to help as many people as I can, whenever I can. This can be so many different things. Whether it’s finding a new fulfilling job or volunteering at a homeless shelter or simply smiling at as many people as you possibly can every day or telling someone how special they are, it helps change the energy of the universe.
Think of if just 10% of the world’s population of 7 billion decided, today, to tell 4 people how great they were. Or, hold a door open for someone. Or, share half their lunch with someone less fortunate. Or, simply, thought about how they could make the world a better place. That’s all we need to change the world. We don’t need millions of dollars or a big elaborate strategy or to save the world from hunger. Would that all help? Of course. But, we need to start at the first step which is to be able to be in our Heart and think, “I’m here to help other people. I’m here to support everyone around me the best way that I can”. “I’m here to be Love”.
I fully agree. I used to think in the wrong way of helping people. For example, you have mentioned of helping homeless people to build a shelter and by helping them you will feel happy. What I used to think is why this person becomes homeless, does he or she just want to rely on others to support and even feed them but they just do nothing to change their life? If that is the case, it is not fair and I even wonder if the world is a place for those hardworking people support or raise those lazy ones. However, I don’t see it in this way any more. I begin to try to wonder and think those people maybe are going through a rough time in their life, and their relying on other people is just temporary and once they figure out what they want to do with their life, they will be strong again and will help those who have been to the same situation as they had been. Then that is a good and healthy circle by helping others and sharing our love. For the bad and negative experience, I fully agree with you. I have been to the worst scenario (some of my friends don’t think it is that bad, but I do), so like you said, I tried to think what I have learned from this bad experience so I will know what to do next time when I run into this situation. Also I think the bright side of my bad/negative experience is now I have been to the worst, so nothing worse than this will come to my life; i.e. it is good to experience the bad experience and taste the good result later in my life. Thinking in this way, my devastated feeling heals a bit and I will move forward. Now I actually don’t think I have been to the worst as one of my friends told me “there is no such “the end of world situation””; he also told me that whatever I think about that worst situation, things can always get worse; and at the time I self-pity myself, there are millions of people in Africa starving but I am not and he said I should appreciate what I have had in my life. Once I have gone through my own process of thinking and evaluating, I feel like I am reborn (a little exaggerated, ah, but back then I do feel wow this is the end of the world). Before I also think it is not fair if I am nice to a certain person but he or she doesn’t respect me in the same way, but like you said in another post, we shouldn’t individualize or isolate each scenario, as maybe this person is not nice to me, but there are many others who respect me and like me to achieve my definition of “love & respect balance” 🙂 Because there are so many people like you and some of my other friends who are positive and loving, I decided to be positive and loving regardless what I get in return. Now when I help other people, I don’t even demand them to “thank you” to me because I do it for my happiness. Thank you for listening and take care.