There are some days when nothing seems to affect you.
It doesn’t matter what happens at work, what challenges come up, no matter how stressed the people around you get – your mind, body & actions just seem to run on auto-pilot.
For me, these are the days when I’m not thinking,
“I could be at home writing.
I could be at home with my family, with the cats & dog.
I could be walking or stretching in the park.”
The real poison to feeling happy & fulfilled – or just, ‘not too bad’ – is wishing you were somewhere else.
I know, I know. It’s easy to say and not so easy to do.
When you’re wrapped up in a situation that you can’t extract yourself from (no matter how short or seemingly long-term it might seem), this resourceful perspective can even seem like a fantasy.
Something for someone else.
When I was little, walking home from school with a heavy school bag, sometimes I would be really tired and just want to be home. I remember looking to the end of the block, 50 meters ahead, and wishing I could teleport myself straight there, to shorten the trip.
Immediately, it would occur to me that if I had the power to do that, why not just teleport myself directly to my house?
The idiocy or absurdity of my initial wish would hit me hard.
So hard, in fact, that I would still be thinking of being at home, resting, but now it was more like waiting for a Christmas present.
An ever-increasing build-up of suspense.
The moment-to-moment experience of physically walking home would transform to become a curious experience.
These days, I prefer being at home, taking a big breath, but when I’m out and about I remind myself of my walks home, as a kid, to try to stay curious & involved in the present moment.
