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The way we go about our business impacts, for better or worse, the way other people go about their business. The way we live encourages or discourages those around us. We live for one another as well as for ourselves. We have responsibilities that extend far beyond us, to encompass the entire planet. What we do —and how we do it— matters! We owe it to each other to grow up, bear the pain of being alive, and do what we can with what we have to work with in offering what we have to give to the context and circumstances of our lives moment-by-moment, situation-by-situation, day-in-and-day-out, regardless of how we feel, or what we want, or how we wish things were. Whether we want to or not for no other reason than because everything depends on it— and if we don't, it creates reverberations that influence the way things are throughout the cosmos. And if you don't believe that, why don't you? Everything turns on our believing that and living as though it is so! Every. Single. Thing. We carry that much power with us into every single day.
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01
We have an idea— a model— a template— a paradigm— a mock-up in our mind— of how things ought to be. And we keep trying to arrange reality to fit our ideal for reality. And the two don't mesh. And here we are. The disparity between how we want things to be and how things are is the reason for the way things are— and for all of the addictions that have ever been or will be. We cannot bear the pain of our dismay, and medicate our agony with any of the 10,000 (And by now there must be 10 billion, or a billion billion, distractions/diversions— and war is a great one) addictions that keep us going under the weight of the burden that cannot be borne: We cannot have what we want. And we can't stand it. Of course, the alternative is growing up. Brushing it off, and stepping back into the next moment as though nothing happened. And, that's easy because with a slight shift in perspective, nothing did happen. We just can't have our way. So what? Happens all the time. Throughout the natural world. "The big fish eat the little fish, but the little fish swim through the mesh in the nets that take the big fish to the cannery." That is the fundamental law of life. Everything has its comeuppance. We all meet our Waterloo, our Russian Winter. There are no free rides to Glory Land. We all pay the fare to ride the ride. Grow up. Get over it. Flip the switch. Turn the light around! Which means: Change Your Perspective! Growing up is nothing more than a shift in perspective. We were looking at it like that, and now we are looking at it like this. That. Is. All. There. Is. To. It. Ever. So, what's so hard about that? We want our way NOW! That is what is so hard about our life. It is the stupidest thing about us. And it is the only thing standing between us and the life that might yet be. But. We have to stand up. Brush it off. And get back in the next moment as though nothing happened— because nothing did happen. We just grew up some more again. "Nothing to it but to do it" (Maya Angelou).
