Within myself I recognize two types of being.
I am
I am at ease
I am with what is
I am experiencing
I am open
I am productive without being driven
I am held and save and existing for the sake of just that
I am life being lived
The other type is
I want
I want
I need
I have to
I can not … without …
If I don’t get x, I will y
This is important
I am important
Everything is in my way
I will go my way, push aside what’s in the way
I have a goal, a dish, a fix, a sensation to obtain
Most of my life I lived in, “I want“.
Through meditation, introspection, therapy, practice, self-discipline, and mainly suffering in the “I want” state, I opened up to the “I am” existence.
A few years ago, these words would not have made any sense to me. No matter how well-meaning and clear they are formulated. To be lived, it needs to be felt rather than intellectually understood.
A few years ago, writing or even reading this text would have been a waste of time to me.
Oh the irony, because for what was I saving my time? What better thing did I have to do? As I was either bored of force-feeding myself some outer stimulation. Watch another episode of something, have another glass of wine or slice of cheese, search for another person who could give me the love I wasn’t ready to give myself yet? Hopping from one treat, one sensation, one stimulus to another – not only was it an endless hunt for satisfaction, and then exhaustion, it was also a race of comparing, judging, fighting for my “fair share”.
I am not free of this “I want/ need” state.
It comes lurking and slowly narrows my vision, shrinks my capacity to be, to enjoy what is, to not impatiently want the present to be over, as I do see life, I want to live in the future but not at the moment.
And then there are the days, moments when what is is good enough.
When I sit in meditation, and I get distracted and washed away by thoughts
and I sit
and I come back to being
and it’s good enough
Days when I am not a walking list of “have to’s.”
Days when I enjoy an embrace for the time in lasts without thinking about what I need to do next
When I do what I can, and that’s enough
In those moments I am free.