Love of Life
I suspect there was a time for all of us when we were in love with life; life was a fantastic adventure, a source of wonder, an endless conveyor of possibilities. So, what happened?
When did we change our mind about life and, instead of embracing it like a many-faced lover, choose to see it as a source of fear, something to be guarded against, certainly to be suspicious of at best? Since then our talents and resources have gone towards building an area of safety, a comfort zone to be strongly protected and patrolled. Many of us have entombed ourselves in a cocoon of separation and dissociation. We may not be so conscious of this attitude in our own behaviour, but glancing around the world with this awareness it seems very prevalent. On the outside we perceive a world more dangerous, so our safety measures seem justified. If we look at such events as BREXIT, which from any angle is an unmitigated disaster, there is a choice of a rush to a very high cliff, which might result in a massive compromise with a lot of downside, or economic suicide. BREXIT was a vote by people wanting to build a comfort zone, an area of safety so the apparent results are certainly in keeping with the folly of such motives.
Our desire to build safety for ourselves is not helping the world and the storm clouds are gathering, so the pressure for significant change is building. There is some awareness of this process and we loved the Facebook post over New Year, “Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.” We also need to be able to answer the question our children and grandchildren will ask, “what did you do to end climate change, any of the many forms of conflict, human suffering etc.?”
It is time now for all of us to let go of our defences, come out of our comfort zones and learn to fall in love with life again. We can only do that by giving ourselves and we can’t do that while defending ourselves. This starts with those closest to us and then we can extend it to more and more people around us and life can become that adventure again, and so our work can become love made visible. Then we can look our friends and our grandkids in the eye.
New Year, new cycle; let’s get past ourselves, dig deep for our purpose and live life to the fullest.
With love
Sue and Jeff