mar29

There is actually nothing wrong with my life. There's only a lack of sufficient love, joy, and healthy orientation towards myself, others and life. There's only poor conditioning, basically. The actual conditions are fine. I am fine. Others are fine. Life is fine.

More than fine. I have people that love and care for me, as I love and care for them. They just don't know how to love me, as I don't know how to love them. They are not villains, they just don't know how, and as a result neither do I. They've been too stressed, distracted, unhealthy, wounded, afraid and unprepared to give me the love and attention I needed to learn how to love and be loved, and how to effectively enjoy and move through the world. They sometimes used, abused and neglected me instead, as a result of experiencing the same themselves. It's what they knew. And now I know it too, and can end up hurting others through similar unconscious patterns in myself. It's an impersonal effect rippling out - repetition compulsion, how we naturally repeat and act out what we've come to know despite our best intentions. I am responsible for dealing with the effects now, and noticing when I'm being mistreated or mistreating others. Remaining in a perpetual state of blame and shame is ineffective because the whole thing is actually impersonal. It's simply an effect of being human that we all go through in different ways. I have the same or similar compulsions in myself now. I've been similarly handicapped in my capacity to engage in nourishing and healthy ways. I don't know how either, and now I have to learn. I'm another wounded human, just like them. I've been poorly conditioned. I can grieve all this now, and continue moving forward.

That's the only real problem that remains - faulty conditioning. Beyond my conditioning, which have become my habitual ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, life itself is fine. Life itself remains abundantly overflowing with everything I could possibly want and need. Yes there is always the fly in the ointment - the dukkha, the suffering, the pain, the frustrations, the imperfections. That's part of life for everyone and everything in different ways. That's part of the deal, part of this ride. And in no time at all, this ride will end and vanish back into the ether. I can either resist it the whole way through for not being perfect enough according to my thoughts, or I can accept and enjoy it as it is while I can. It's up to me. Either way, it'll be over and done with soon enough.

The same applies to myself. I can resist and condemn myself for not being perfect enough, or I can accept and enjoy myself as I am, with all my imperfections, failures and regrets. It's up to me.

And it can only start here and now. There is no future - it's now or never. It's always now or never. Because an imagined future is only a thought. When it really comes it will be now, and it will not be as I once thought it would be. It will be however it is, still riddled with imperfections. And I'll be left with the same choices. Accept or reject. Enjoy or condemn. Appreciate or resent. And then, regardless of what I choose, I'll die, others will die, and the world will disappear.

It's time to move deeper into acceptance, deeper into enjoyment, deeper into appreciation. Regardless of the conditions. These conditions are what I've got - they're all I've got! Yes they can and will be changed in some ways, but in other ways they cannot and will not, at least not by my will. They are what I have got. Everything that cannot be changed is better off accepted either stoically or with gentle appreciation. Whatever can be changed to better suit me is better off simply and quietly changed. That's all. No fighting, no blaming, no shaming, no judging, no condemning. Just simple facts and simple acts.

So I'll continue to practice meditation and mindfulness, to withdraw from and dissolve the ineffectual and destructive conditioned patterns while deepening awareness and acceptance of what is and what can and cannot be changed. And I'll continue to move towards changing what can be changed, one step at a time. But I will also enjoy it for what it is here and now, no matter the conditions. Because even these conditions will be gone very soon, blinking out of existence along with these eyes. They are all I've got, and they are really not all that bad. Right now I'm warm, safe, fed, clean, capable, and in many ways more blessed than most. Despite any personal challenges and limitations, that's more than enough to make due and enjoy what's available. That's more than enough to appreciate. Nothing more is needed. I just need to remember.

But I will forget. I'm programmed to forget. And then again and again I'll have to remember to appreciate and enjoy myself, others and life as it all is. While I still can.