All There Is

"Ask Amy" published a letter recently that set my blood boiling. The letter-writer said she was happily married, happily childless, and both she and her spouse have good jobs. Yet, she writes, "I recently wondered, What do I have to look forward to? I couldn't think of anything."  Really?!  She is not ill, has no pain, has a loving spouse and support network Then I read on to find that there mortgage is too steep, she is trapped in the job (which is now described as unfulfilling and not so good) and has lost any free time to do hobbies or things she loves.

Then the letter fell into place for  me. The eternal dilemma of "what else is there' seems to hit everyone at some point (usually in the second half of life).  Rob Bell writes in Drop Like Stars that people get bored: "If we aren't careful, our success and security and abundance can lead to a certain sort of boredom, a numbing predictability, a paralyzing indifference that comes from being too comfortable." Before I got ill, I used running and exercise to help me feel alive, and Bell quotes long distance runner and writer Haruki Murakami on this process, "It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get a feeling, through this process, of really being alive."

I would hate to think that suffering is required to help us appreciate the moments of beauty, love, and laughter that can charm our everyday lives. When I am pain free I can only imagine the great joy, the freedom, the lightness of being that will accompany that moment and every moment thereafter - until I possibly forget, or encounter other difficult situations. Thich Nhat Hahn writes that it is a naive idea to want to eliminate suffering. He says (in Your True Home) "without suffering, we do not have the ability to cultivate compassion and understanding; and without understanding, there can be no true love." Love is the fuel for our engines, for the engine of the universe, but I like to think we can understand that and feel it in each moment of our daily lives.