Last week I was reflecting on what I wanted to teach about, and this little slip of paper fluttered out from a notebook of mine. Written in a friend’s lovely hand writing, it simply read:
Don’t borrow interest on worry.
This friend obviously knows me well, because if my future worries were a bank, I would have taken out hundreds of loans. It’s part of the reason I so often am drawn to do a meditation on releasing the future. It’s so much of the work I have spent the last year doing on myself. Detaching, letting go of control a bit, and trying to live in what is presently happening.
I like to solve problems before they become too big or cause too much pain. Unfortunately, when you don’t know exactly what the problems will be, you end up trying to resolve a hypothetical. Inevitably how things turn out are quite another way anyway. Because that is life. Real life anyway.
As I shared in my classes, here’s another gem:
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. –
So why rob ourselves of the contentment and whatever ease and comfort we may have in the present? The future will be here soon enough, but if in this moment all is ok, then enjoy that. Being present gives us the gift of more peace and more joy.
Hakuna matata my friends!