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How?
A Few Questions
In this life, what do you really care about?
Looking back, what has mattered to you? Looking ahead, what do you want to keep on the front burner?
Imagine resting comfortably in your last few days and reflecting on your life. What do you want to be glad that you felt and did?
Some Potentially Big Things
I’ll offer here some things I’ve been thinking about lately. See what fits you and add your own. Here we go.
You. The sweet soft, vulnerable innerness upon which both the chocolate kisses and sharp darts of life land. Your own well-being. What you make of what the poet Mary Oliver has called “your one wild and precious life.”
Love in its many forms, from compassion and small acts of kindness to passionate romance and profound cherishing. The people who matter to you.
Tasting – with all your senses – whatever is delicious at this moment: a ripe banana, birdsong, the curve of a highway railing, the lips of a lover, being alive . . .
Practice. Helping yourself routinely to deepen in awareness and to pull weeds and plant flowers in the garden of your mind.
Karma yoga – a Hindu term that means skillful action toward wholesome ends, engaged as practice, imbued with a sense of union with whatever is sacred to you; this includes taking care of details that matter and appreciating the power of little things to add up over time, for better or worse.
Letting go. Exhaling, relaxing, changing your mind, moving on, and disengaging from upsets (while also standing up for things that matter).
The thing(s) you keep putting off – perhaps speaking your mind to someone, writing that book, returning to the piano, making time for exercise, or seeing the Grand Canyon.
Being making time for hanging out with no agenda. Rather than doing, the addiction of modern life. Doing crowds out like cancer cells crowd out healthy ones.
Remembering to remember the big things. And to act upon them. Before it’s too late.
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