It’s going to…
How many times have we said to someone, or been told ourselves, “it’s going to be okay”. A hopeful phrase meant to reconcile the current situation and give our loved ones the fortitude to keep pushing. We trust these words too, often they snap our perspective back in focus, can be a light in a tunnel, pick your bs metaphor here. Well recently I had a very wise person say something that has sat with me since and I wanted to share it with y’all. I was feeling down, uninspired, unwanted, all of the typical self indulging melodrama one would expect from a moody teen (of course we never actually grow up in my opinion, we all just decide to start faking it at some point), and she simply said “Ian, it’s already alright”. Now I may have been doing too much of a dive into Buddhist philosophy and searching a little to hard for peace but for some reason that simple alteration struck me to my core. It is alright, right now, exactly as you are, exactly as the situation is. Ultimately our perspectives are what bring our peace, we have everything inside us now to be completely and utterly content and feel love in ways that fill our soul to the brim. We don’t need to be constantly striving for the next great thing, our next achievement, the next purchase, the next goal. The same message I’ve been consuming finally clicked.
When we focus on the future and how we are going to make ourselves happy then we lose the opportunity to find joy now. To feel our breath in our chest and examine everything we have been so very fortunate to experience. We lose the present in the future and as a by product we chose to indulge in our misery now with the hopes that we will be able to fix it with something that’s coming. So I have spent the past week or so trying (it is a huge practice) to let go of my ambitions, to put aside my plans and find time to simply exist. It feels like I was trying to find this ultimately extremely simple truth by frantically searching for enlightenment or whatever the hell you want to call it. How hilarious is the concept of searching for enlightenment when you really boil it down to brass tax, we are already everything we need to be, we just have to see it. This is not me saying don’t achieve, don’t strive, don’t work to make the world better, but maybe stop killing yourself trying, put down the anxiety machine and step out of the cycle, there is everything in the now.
So for me I reflect on all the wonderful people I have reconnected with since being home. Every loved one who has stretched out their hand and given me shelter, food, their time, their love. I am so utterly blessed to have you all in my life. To call you my community. To feel safe and cared for when I have spent so much of my time trying desperately to make a difference for others (not sure if I’ve succeeded in that one but hey maybe!). Each of you in your own way have shown me what family means, whether that is a pan of fajitas with an old friend, a phone call just to check in, a hug, a kiss, a freaking high five, I love it all and carry it with me. If we haven’t had the chance either since I’ve been back don’t worry we will, it’s all alright.
Love
Fitz
