Open Your Eyes

Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Bob Marley asked: "Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?"  How would you answer him?

No.

I think the only sane answer to this question is no. 

 It has to be no.

This is the strange quasi-truth place of satisfactions and contentments.  

We talk a lot about being content with our lives and what we really mean is, are we able to live without jealousy and envy ruling us.  Perhaps keeping a rein in on ambitions.  We mean that we are able to cope with all the unexpected and unpleasant parts of life in a mostly positive and healthy fashion.

Content can not be apathetic.  It can not be the absence of the desire to learn or grow or improve or try.  Content can not be hopeless.

If we were satisfied as a people there would be no inventions.  No one would try to run a faster marathon or bake a better cake or write a more profound sentence.  Ahem.

Do I like the life I am living?  Do I enjoy the life I live?  Do I think I am making choices that are more positive than negative? 

These seem like better questions, but not better song lyrics.  

So do I?

Yes.  I do.  I like my life.  I enjoy my life.  Hard, easy, ugly, beautiful, sad, happy and all the other shades of being alive, yes.  

And yes, I do still see lots of places in my life for growing and learning.  I still see lots of things I want to do or finish or try before my time runs out.  I feel that even if I'm not striving after them in what you would see as some extraordinary way or with great passion, I am still heading in those directions.  

Is all of that stuff, external for you to see?  

No.  

Should it matter if you can see it or not?

I think no, but I also think it would be hard to hide.

Everyone knows people who have just stopped.  Their life is just circumstance that happens to them and they recite the same reasons and excuses and justifications over and over.  It is someone else's fault.  Fate got them.  Their Karma is bad.  God is teaching them a lesson.  You've heard it, you've known them.

You also know those people that just seem to have that certain something.  Their life goes along in a way that is interesting and moving.  They live in a whirlwind of activity and life, even in the midst of quiet solitude.  Something in them has a spark and a flicker.  Something in them keeps trying no matter what comes their way.  They never seem to just mumble things like, well, I guess, it is what it is.  They might say that phrase, but in a way that you know they aren't quite finished yet.

I want to be living life with a twinkle in my eye.  I want to have a smile that comes easy and a laugh that is genuine and comes quick.  

Yeah, I know not everyone sees me like that, but that's part of life and living too.  Unique perspectives.  The important part of that is being able to see more than your own unique perspective, but that's another thought for another day.