Presence

It's hard to have perspective on my own life when I'm in the middle of it. Like everyone, I'm a complex creature with a lot of emotions and tendencies that pull on me and interact with each other. And it's a real challenge to try to get to the eye of that storm, to the calm center where all of those forces are peripheral and there is a sense of the true direction in which I'm headed. I have friends who, like me, are going through particular challenges in their lives now, and it's often easier for me to give them calm and reasonable advice than it is for me to take the same advice to heart myself. This works the other way around, too. I have a friend who has listened to some of my recent frustrations and anxieties and responded that I should take time to remember what I've accomplished up to now, all that I've been doing that I'm not giving myself credit for. And that I should also bear in mind that things won't be this way forever, that it's a trying time right now but I'm continually moving in the right direction -- it just takes time to realize all of the changes. But this same friend who gave me such encouragement about my situation and decisions is having a hard time seeing past the immediate troubles in their life as well and seeing that there are brighter times ahead, in spite of the fact that this is what they have told me. Sometimes what lies between us and the payoff seems so daunting, and it's difficult to have the determination to persevere with a hopeful and optimistic spirit intact. But I think that's what we have each other for, to remind each other of the good in our lives and of the truth that the good is ultimately what will prevail.

On a related note, I read something encouraging yesterday, written by Thich Nhat Hanh in his book, The Energy of Prayer. In the third chapter, he discusses each line of the Lord's Prayer, and I particularly loved this section on being happy in the present, in spite of anxieties, from his comments on the line, "Give us today our daily bread":

In our daily life we have many anxieties. We have our cravings and we tend to want to store things up. We do not know that the present moment is important. Life can only be there in the present moment. If our only concern is to invest in tomorrow, then it would be easy to completely forget about he wonders of life in the present moment. We have to return to the present moment, to live it deeply and properly. We have to live in such a way that the kingdom of God is present here and now. This is a prayer that needs to be practiced twenty-four hours every day, because we want to live the present moment deeply in every second. The words of the prayer are not only to be read before we go to sleep; they have to be recited all day long.

We already have sufficient conditions to be happy today. We have to pray in such a way that we can be in touch with the conditions of happiness that are in us and around us. They're all there, available. We shouldn't be greedy. We shouldn't demand that life go on for hundreds and hundreds of years. How can life continue for hundreds of years if right in this present moment we are not able to be alive?