Contradictions

Happy Summer!

I’m not trying to be morose here, but I have questions.

Contradictions. One definition is: a direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency. Inconstant: Changeable. Variable.                                                              

Sometimes it seems like simply too much. We know, on an intellectual level, if we think of it at all, that we will lose people during our life’s journey. But that doesn’t prepare us. I guess I thought I would be old and gray and past caring. Funny that.

Contradictions. I wasn’t prepared for the asymmetry. The suddenness. The inexplicable. The random nature of well, nature. How is it that some people endure a long multitude of diminishing illnesses that lead to the inevitable… while others, too, too young vanish in a breath? And every permutation and combination in between. No one is assured a set journey. A set amount of time. It’s inconstant. Inconsistent.

In every single case the people remaining are in shock, grieving, trying to process the loss. I don’t get it. Is this some cosmic decision made before we are born? A decision to suffer…or not…for our soul’s growth? For someone else’s? That maybe makes sense.

When I was young, I desperately wanted to know what the future held. Now I know why most of us don’t have that gift. It would not be a gift. There was wisdom in that.

So what I say to myself every single day is: Be present. Pay attention. Be grateful. Don’t complain. We have Light and Dark. We have Joy and Sorrow. We have right now. Right 

Now. 

Possibly a Jack Kornfield interpretation of the teachings of the Buddha. Either way, it’s good, yes?