This morning, I woke up, feeling stressed, dreadful, and distracted. It’s not what anybody wants — in a morning when it’s sunny, birds chirping outside of your window… Good start of the day — it shouldn’t be so hard.

“If now I’m going back to sleep, I will have nothing else but nightmare.” I thought. So I decided to do a meditation session with an audio guide from “I am here“.

I woke up feeling so much lighter.

The problems didn’t disappear. They are still there. But after the meditation, they seems to be “beside me” instead of “inside my head”, as how I felt before.

The world hasn’t change. I have.

I still have obstacles blocking my way, but at least I’m not carrying them on my shoulder anymore.

 

Job searching leading nowhere is one of my problems.

“It’s not that bad.” I’ve learnt to say to myself quite often lately. Job searching is never easy, not to mention if you are looking for a job that requires proficiency of a language which is not your native tongue. It barely matters how good your language skills are.

But I won’t let myself accept a job that I’m not really interested in. Just to avoid wasting my time. Whether every day, every hour is enjoyable, is the key to my life choices — at least it should be. Using my summer to spend with family and to go on vacations, while searching for jobs in media and communication related field, is the right choice comparing to spending the whole summer in front of the computer screen, worrying whether I could get enough money for the month.

Be true. This is my challenge, also the solution of some problems.

Afraid of loosing something can be a sign of its importance, but it can also mean that I’ve been trapped in the dark void of possessiveness. Wanting more, keeping more. They are beautiful things, useful books. But my luggage only becomes heavier and heavier. Possessing more and more things grands me psychological satisfaction, but it makes me unhappy.

Be true to others. Because, it’s not just about being honest with the others so that it’s “the right thing” to do. Being true to others also allow your life to be easier. Being true to yourself results in saving your own time and energy to persuade yourself into doing something that you will possibly regret.

 

What is making you, in this moment, happy? Like Milan Kundera’s Kalinin —

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.”

What’s considered “boring”, such as repetition of certain things, is peace. Excitement cannot last. Inner peace and gratitude can.

Humans have brains that make us complicated: we think of the past and the future, we imagine the best and the worst. Dogs are simple. Emotions can go up and down. But they can be more focused than humans. The ones that can focus as well as dogs are human babies. Their mind is like sky. Sunny, rainy, cloudy, windy — everything is possible. But when the clouds float away, there is the clear sky again.

We are too used to our complexity as a marvelous gift from god. Yet burdening it with too much from the outside world is diminishing its functionality. Now it’s time to combine it with our instinctive ability to focus. Getting lost in the chaotic world? — This is why meditation helps.

 

 

30 Days Writing Challenge – Day 9