Vanilla Oat Clusters Cereal/Orange Slices
Keshav did not know he was working today. He went in yesterday, and then found out today was when he was scheduled. Oops! He worked for the morning yesterday doing "audits", which he reported were very boring, and then was up again this morning for his scheduled shift.
Since I did not have a breakfast planned for today, I relied on my easy backup: cereal. Fortunately, he likes it, so there are no complaints, and truth be told, he did get a "bonus" breakfast yesterday since he was not supposed to go in. You might be wondering what I made yesterday? I made a Creamy “Caramel” Banana & Walnut Bread Smoothie and Avocado Toast. The smoothie recipe was in my Blue Zones Cookbook--part of our new heart healthy regimen.
Last night, I made us a dinner of grilled sardine/cream cheese melts with tomato soup. I was hoping he would like it, but he LOVED it! This is good news, because sardines are a great source of heart healthy protein, though the next time I will use light cream cheese and double the sardines in order to make the mix a bit more sturdy in the sandwich. What he doesn't know is that there were chopped capers in the cream cheese mix, but what he doesn't know can't hurt him--capers add great flavor as long as I can disguise them.
Anyway, he loved the sandwich so much that he asked if there was more. I told him there was, and he could eat it with some homemade crackers if he wanted to, but I also told him that the portion I gave him was sufficient and I am trying to train his stomach to want less food (he is trying to drop a few pounds). I am glad he decided not to eat more. I want him to get used to smaller portions without feeling deprived.
*
This weekend is July 4th, but it is a bit more of a celebration because it is also the 250th birthday of the United States. It should be a blowout celebration, but it seems nobody is in a party mood if Trump is throwing the party.
It was 50 years ago when we celebrated our Bicentennial, and I was 13 years old. I remember being so very excited about the holiday because it felt like a really big deal. 200 years! And you know what, it was a big deal back then, because most of the country was on board with the celebrations. This year, not so much.
There are a lot of writers discussing the meaning of 250 years of the experiment we call the USA. I still love living in this country, despite my concerns about the current federal leadership team. I love living hear because I can disagree with the leadership team and still walk around a free man. I still believe that our Constitution was an inspired, though flawed, document, and that the majority of it continues to influence the law of the land.
The Constitution guarantees its citizens the "pursuit of happiness", and I feel this is one of the most difficult concepts in the document to truly understand the meaning of. It's tricky in a way, because if you look at the wording, the writers were not guaranteeing us happiness, only the pursuit of it. In my opinion, this is one of the flaws of the Constitution, while also being one of its greatest opportunities.
In my meditation training, one teacher said that the act of seeking something ensures that it will be out of our reach. In other words, it we decide that we have to "find" ourselves, it is pretty likely that we will feel lost most of the time, since we have declared that our self is something yet to be found.
These same teachers tell me that everything is available to us now, just as home was available to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz if only she knew to click her heels together. So what does this mean? Is there no value in the pursuit? Well, it depends on how you construct the pursuit.
Most people focus too much on the destination of the pursuit, meaning they miss out on the gifts of it. The pursuit is where we uncover insights and new information about ourselves and others, which is why Dorothy eventually found her way home. If your goal is to get back home, there is no right way to get there--you can click your heels or you can go down the Yellow Brick Road--it depends on how you want to experience the way back.
But the pursuit can overtake us and keep us stuck on the road, never reaching the destination. How do I know this? Just look around. You can seen multiple examples of people on the pursuit, never coming close to happiness. Why is this?
The New York Times recently wrote about a man who has been in prison for nearly 30 years of a life sentence, and he is quoted as saying, "I’m free in the heart and I’m free in the mind, and that’s how I find happiness." He has figured it out more than those who have 100 times more freedom that he has, because he has realized that freedom has little to do with whether or not he is behind bars.
Take our current president, for a different example. This is a man who has more power and freedom than 99% of the world, and yet he seems miserable. He is overweight, possibly diabolically insecure about his appearance, and appears to have no real friends and not one person who truly loves him. He can buy whatever he wants, but this does not lead to happiness. He has been lost in the pursuit for decades. Have you ever seen him smile? It does not look like a real smile, it looks more like his mouth is in the pursuit of a smile.
This is the flaw in how many think about the "pursuit of happiness". They mistakenly think the pursuit will get them somewhere they want to be, rather than wanting to be where they are in the pursuit.
If considered with humility and curiosity, and undertaken with curiosity, compassion, and mindfulness, one might find that happiness has been hiding along the road the whole time--we discover that what we have been looking for has been there the whole time--we simply had to start paying attention.
Perhaps the writers of the Constitution wanted their document to be a set of clues, like instructions to an escape room. I cannot know what motivated them to use the words and phrases they chose, but I can decide what they mean to me.
As I approach this weekend's 250th birthday of our country, I have decided to make the road my destination. The pursuit is the destination.
Comments
Post a Comment