Dear Diary,
As the holidays approach, all processes intensify sharply – you want to finish promised work, in the educational institution final assessments begin before the exam session starting in the new year, as if on cue the annual personal health check at the family clinic falls on you. And there’s also the need to spruce up, shop, buy one or two little gifts. And somehow a couple of days ago, riding the trolleybus, I realized that I was up to my ears drawn into all these whirlwinds, that in my head spins all that anxious “mumumu” and “bububu” – and what about this? And what about that? And if that doesn’t, then that will so then? In other words, if philosophy likes to talk about some kind of enlightenment, this is the complete opposite – a deep, one-hundred-percent eclipse.
Here, at that very second, the question surfaced bringing instant salvation – what, for heaven’s sake, at this very specific moment prevents you from being very, very calm and very, very happy. Does anything oblige you, riding along in a trolleybus, to think about work, studies, tests. And, most importantly, does that thinking bring any tangible benefit – will anything change from that attempt to rearrange colorful cubes in your head over and over, and, most importantly, will it change for the better. No. Work doesn’t get done from thinking about it on the trolleybus, listened-to lectures don’t get assessed from it, the shopping list doesn’t assemble itself, unless of course you pull out your phone with your favorite Todoist and actually start laying out that shopping or gift list. In essence it’s simply a completely pointless activity, sucking and burning your inner resources and making you collapse crosswise into bed at evening completely wrung out.
Between two challenges, between two obligations, between two (knock on wood on wood on wood) calamities there’s always plenty of time to be peaceful and, most importantly, happy. Even if we experienced a minor setback, even if something isn’t going as we’d like or at least not as it does for others, we still have the opportunity to remain if not happy, then at least peaceful. For some reason people call the moments when they can be peaceful and happy meditation – so it could be said that between two points requiring physical and psychological activity there’s always time for meditation. We have all the possibilities and full right for that. But out of some foolish habit we don’t use it, out of some foolish habit every such opportunity, every such gap we fill with plunging into our inner pre-holiday “mumumu” and “bububu”, thus making life more gray, more draining, more uncheerful. Today – a wonderful day to start changing this :-)
