Our Only Job is to Be Here
Our Only Job is to Be Here
What if our only job was really to be here. We have these imaginations which can launch us into the future, the past and every which way but here. They seem so enticing and invite us to build and create and then move towards that. Yet, when we do, when we are focused there, we are living in fantasy time. It’s fun, yes. I love living in my imagination. This isn’t a knock on imagination. But it seems there is some way we have all closed up shop on the present and took up residence in imagination land.
What if our job is to be here. Try it out. Be here. Being here means not believing what you are thinking but just noticing what you are thinking. Being here means you feel your body. I mean really feel your body. Sensations, tingling, aches, numbness, the dullness, the tension. Not to make it change, not for anything, just to feel it. Then when we are here we notice an inspiration of what wants to evolve next. So we step. We take a step. That is our only job. Be here and take a step. What if we can’t really design our futures and if we try to we are just missing the whole plot line of aliveness. What if life is more powerful than ‘us’ - meaning our egos or whatever you want to call it - that incessant chatter going on in our minds. What if our only job is to notice this moment, notice the truest impulse and step and just watch what unfolds. Not having a big plan in mind, not having an agenda, just seeing again and again what unfolds. What if that is all life is. A big never ending, always happening, unfolding, like you are always unwrapping a present but you never get to the gift, the gift is the unwrapping. Maybe that feels uninspiring but I dare you to try it out…begin to notice the experience of the ‘unwrapping’ the moment to moment unfolding.
That is it. Presents come. They do come but not because we planned or designed them. And usually when we do and then ‘arrive’ at what we designed we feel a brief flicker of satisfaction and then it fades and then we are off again to design a bigger and better future. How exhausting. What if the beauty is just stepping. Notice. Be here and step just the next step. Watch when the big moments arrive, the gifts so to speak, and then they pass and it’s all beautiful because you have enjoyed every step and every present moment and every gift and you begin to enjoy the whole wonder of it. To enjoy that we have absolutely no control over any of it so just enjoy the experience, the moment. Maybe enjoy isn’t quite the right word…just be in the moment and when you are, even if it’s a painful moment something arises. Love can arise. Meet the moments with love and a welcoming curiosity. Just consider for a moment, that you can look back on your life lived this way. That you can zoom ahead 50 years and look back and notice that you lived each moment with a welcoming and curious heart no matter what happened. That you lived letting go of the illusion that you could control and manage it all and you welcomed the ups and downs and twists and turns. That in the midst of it all, even the most brutal pain and suffering, you met it with love and open curiosity. Try that on today to see how that makes aliveness feel. What if our job is just to be here.
