The Real World as Medicine and Solace

Apples in the Garden (Photo: Richard Dale)

THE REAL WORLD
This is a loaded one, eh? What is the real world? Well, let's just say, that getting outside, and putting our feet on something besides concrete or asphalt, or a wooden or otherwise floor, that's the real world. Breathing air that isn't trapped inside four walls and a roof and a floor, that's the real world. Looking up at the sky, out into the horizon, having some trees or desert or water, something of nature around you, that's the real world.

And inside? What of our insides? Because obviously, we can be walking along, feet on the sand, ocean waves majestically breaking to one side and tropical paradise to the other, and if our mind is full of our divorce, or our resentments, or our anguish, or our hatred, or our worry, we might as well be sitting in some crowded freeway, with some real reasons to be annoyed.

Which is a slip, really, because if we really do the Byron Katie work, then even in the stalled freeway, without our story, we are just a person sitting in a car and going slow, and we still have our breathing and our awareness and a chance to be present and happy even if we aren't getting what we want.

This, ah, this, is one of the great art forms of a real and happy life: to be happy even when we aren't "getting what we want."

And on the way: go on outside, breathe and be present. That helps.