And So It Goes

Rise before the sun shines bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Brew the perfect cup of coffee and enjoy sipping it while birds sing their songs welcoming spring. The sky is blue with light, white, fluffy clouds hanging daintily from its ceiling. Outside the world welcomes the sun’s rays and happily molds the golden light into shiny hope for all earth’s inhabitants. Moving slow enough to realize it, we pause for a brief moment, stand by the open window and inhale future’s promise deep into our lungs attempting to fill our soul with enough good to last throughout the day. Man’s clock doesn’t stop however, and we are programmed to step in time with it. Only minutes left before we must begin another man-made day. Turn on the tube for the most recent news; teen robbers, domestic shootings, family kidnappings, murderous rages, flooded communities, casualties of war, nuclear contamination, and White House stale-mate stories quickly crowd our hope-filled souls and stealthily, without our awareness of it, the weight of man’s decisions are heavily upon our shoulders. This unrealized burden settles inside our thoughts and lay deeply beneath the recent memory of a brand new day. Unknowingly we traverse through our days appalled by what we witness but helpless to make a difference. We bury our guilt and customarily put on our happy face. And so it goes.

Time spent embracing the new day has us running late. Rushing out, driving to point B with a blinding focus that dangerously hinders our awareness to the present we rush in to work questioning to ourselves, “Was that light green or red?” and “How did I get here?” 4,380 days have gone by rushing into this place and you would think they would remember the first day you stepped foot into their building. The sacrifices you have made, lost time with your family, missed reunions, passed up vacations, and most importantly – your willingness to continue choosing them over you. Today you arrive to find it the same as yesterday, nothing has changed. Well, except the people maybe, but the positions, the titles, the cubicles, the offices, and the duties remain. Your anniversary feels more like a sentence without parole but you press forward unwilling to ponder your childhood dreams, afraid to take personal inventory because you fear discovering yourself empty and hollow – devoid of any unique aspirations belonging solely to yourself. Childhood dreams and goals are long gone and mostly forgotten. You rise and partake in man’s reality, which is not reality at all but merely a projection of what many think it should be. You are unsatisfied and unhappy but you cannot be true to yourself for to do so would mean disappointing so many others like your Boss, Co-Workers, Husband, Parents, and Children. They count on your bi-weekly contribution to have and live the way they feel they must, in order to be successful in their eyes you proceed to live a dead life while the lively one you possess inside slowly dies. And so it goes.

A weak economy creates a layoff situation and the pink slip you receive is detrimental to your lively hood. Without your income pressures build around you. No longer an asset to those around you but in time you are simply a burden. Your husband cannot support the lifestyle the family has become accustom to. Unable to remove society’s veil he is wired to keep his possessions and by whatever means, make ends meet. His foundation for life is weak for it was built with earthly things. Lacking the strength to uphold moral codes the mortar crumbles. He sweeps up the crumbs and seeks refuge in another’s virtual safe haven. In time your children want the material things that you can no longer provide but he can. Lost are your chances to instill in them humanly attributes that will make them strong enough to withstand our man-made society with arbitrary goals and unnecessary pressures. With him they will continue to grow strong in a foundation that is nothing but a mirage, it is no foundation at all but imagined to be so. And so it goes.

Moving forward in a new world, one that has been with you all along, you are blessed with an opportunity to view the same old things with new eyes. No longer blinded by superficial gains but driven by spiritual needs. Life is much slower giving you more time to discover your real self. Those lost spirits looking for a strong, man-made foundation continue to pass you up. This is indeed yet another blessing in disguise. Time is now your friend, life is quaint as you listen to the birds outside your window. You are no longer devastated by the loss of what so many feel is necessary because you have gained what many may never find; a sight into a world of hope and promise that goes beyond false perspectives of success, values and reasons for waking each day. This new outlook is magnificently large and the feeling of love for the world and its inhabitants so grand that you wish to embrace all that we are, and lift the veil for each and every one of us. But this type of view cannot be shown to anyone, it has to be discovered by the greedy choices we make and the self-created predicaments we find ourselves in; they will one day render us with no other alternative but to see the truth and the world as it really is and as it should be. And so it goes.