caterpillar

When the caterpillar crawls out from it’s chrysalis it doesn’t wait to see what will happen. Small and vulnerable it makes it’s way in the world immediately and the small change that is necessary, before most of us can begin the significant change we really need in our lives, is not necessary for the caterpillar. Does it worry about being food for the birds? No. Ah but we are sentient and there is the problem. We think and we worry. Some times we think too much and worry about the wrong things and cannot see the value of what is with in our grasp, what we already have. We worry about time passing and don’t live in the moment we have. We rush through beautiful time and spaces seeing nothing because an old and redundant reality demands it. We want more stuff or less stuff. We want to be young again and potent because that was when it was all good. Was it? No, nor is it now but these are exciting times.
I believe that in order to grow and know we have to participate with others and not always on familiar ground. Push the envelope. It is good to be out of one’s comfort zone, with others, some times. It broadens the outlook and fosters positive change. 
We have to have some thing to say, some thing to contribute. We can change so much and we must all have hope or be defeated. Even when we are low and sad most of us have some capacity for choice and meaningful change that will bring real benefit.

Of course some times the darkness is seemingly insurmountable but often the way forward is brighter and clearer than we think. Even then we are some times afraid the way forward might rob us of our comfort zone where we languish in the place we know best. I have had my share of suffering brought about through my own contrivance and I was not able to see it for what it was.

Some times the well intentioned support system provided by friends, family and colleagues can be a negative force that may provide a kind of security that keeps us locked in our pain. We can get used to it and we can get used to needing to be where we are in spite of our complaining about the cost of staying in such a static mode.We can’t live in the past nor take enough succour from past glories to carry us into the future. What is gone is gone and done with.

Every new day presents an opportunity to re-invent ourselves, to throw away the old us that doesn’t work well according to the new day’s review and to make a new us. I know that this opportunity is not an option for all people. Capacity is critical though I constantly see the efforts of those for whom life is irrevocably challenging and I am humbled. We should try to become how we are supposed to be. How do we know what that is? The answer is in the quest for self awareness and then self development.  The barometer of success in this is felt as happiness and contentment and the increased well being of those closest. 


peace