Finding Peace in Life

...Nine months later (...hm, the gestation period of a human being!)

...I've been practicing letting life live through me. And no, I'm not pregnant!

Letting "life live through me" means trusting that if I do what I love and enjoy, and if I stay present and don't subscribe to fear, life will unfold in unpredictable and beautiful ways. Life will no longer be serious and hard, and the sense of wanting something else would subside, eventually going away. Leaving peace, contentment, and a subtle sense of happiness.

Over the past 9 months, I haven't been entirely sure "letting life live through me" would pay my bills and mortgage or bring peace to my life. Yet I have been "letting life live through me" now for longer than 9 months, and I'm paying the bills, though my busy mind often won't let me live in peace. But mind is another story, and I'll talk about it another time. For now, suffice to say that I have not been able to get a job, yet money does come - usually in unexpected ways. So, I am officially dedicating my life to finding out if by "letting life live through me" whether it will work or not. I'll post my experiences and the outcome here.

Will the things I end up "doing" while I'm "Being" (letting life live through me) work for someone else - make someone else happy? Probably not. Because you have different likes and dislikes than me. But if you follow the formula: Do what you enjoy doing, be present, don't "do" out of fear (i.e., if you take a job that will make you miserable, that is doing out of fear.) ... well, then you have the recipe for a peaceful life.

The human condition is that we as individuals in this world have to MAKE things happen. And it does work, at a price. It brings with it exhaustion, illness, disease, depression, fear, and a deep unhappiness. A not-enoughness.

My experiment is to stop "making things happen," and to begin to Allow Life To Live Through Me. This is not a religion or a philosophy. It is simply Being in this world.

The biggest myth around Being is that if you stop making things happen, you aren't contributing. That if you are simply Being, you'll be sitting in a cave or on a couch, drooling (as Byron Katie says), letting life pass you by and not contributing to the world at all. NO! In fact, it is quite the opposite. Becuse when you are in the moment, you are compelled to take action in the things that you enjoy. You are compelled to go "do" things, but you aren't seeking an identity in them, you're having fun and enjoying them, and you come to realize over time that it's not you doing them, it's life moving through you. It's living at a level and in a way that most humans don't know how to live. All animals and plants do, but not 99% of humans.

Humans are the only living beings on this planet that cannot simply Be. We have to DO (make things happen) all the time, and we believe if we don't DO, we are failures, we aren't "towing the load" or carrying our burden. What a crock. And how sad that 90+ % of our society subscribes to this belief. And so when we experiment with Being, the rest of the world tends to watch us with curiosity, like they're staring at a morbid car crash as they drive by. It's so compelling to look, because won't I see mayhem? Maybe some blood?

And they wonder, Will it work? It's rather like a fairy tale. So they watch and wonder. And instead of blood, life looks very quiet and tranquil. Because when you are Being and taking action from that place of Being Present, you discover you don't need the social standing or money or impressive car and house. And yet life is giving you all you need, and even things you no longer think you need. You become the very thing that will make you a success in their eyes. And by the time you become their version of a success, none of the material things (house, car, Prada purse) and social standing will matter. Because you ... because I ... will have found peace in life.