Written Along the Way

Meditation is medication.

There are many ways to meditate. There has been much written about meditation by people with more skill at writing and more skill at meditating than I have, but I’ve written this anyway. A simple way is to just sit and focus on your breath in and out. Breathe in through your nose. That is important. Try to breathe normally but deeply. Count the breaths 1 to 10 then go back to 1. This gives your mind an easy way to focus on your breath.

You will have thoughts. Many thoughts. Try to acknowledge the thought, let it go rather than focusing on it and return to counting your breaths. The goal is not to control your mind or to eliminate thoughts. The goal is to observe your thoughts. Once you truly become the observer then you realize that you are not creating these thoughts. Your mind is constantly pumping out thoughts and looking for your attention. When you become the observer instead of the owner of these thoughts you have created distance between you and the thoughts. You can more easily let them go instead of being immersed in them. 

The results spiral and layer upon each other. In your daily life, when you are able to recognize and acknowledge thoughts and emotions as they appear, you are also able to let them go (the same way you let a thought go while meditating). This allows you to not be consumed by them in your normal life. You do not have to be swept away by each thought or emotion that comes up. This allows you to be more present in each moment instead of being distracted. This allows you to more truly see what is really important in each moment. The more that all this happens the more your mind actually changes because it wants your attention! You may notice that you have less negative thoughts because you’ve taught your mind that they will not receive attention. That’s the spiral. All the benefits create additional benefits like a positive feedback loop.

Also, people often say “I’m not good at meditation. My mind just wonders.” Back up. How much effort did you put into your practice? What in your life have you been awesome at without sustained effort? It takes practice.

Lastly, if this sounds like bullshit there is another physical, scientifically proven benefit. Breathing in through your nose allows you to fill the lowest parts of your lungs that are not filled by mouth breathing. That activates your parasympathetic nervous system which is the opposite of fight or flight. You will receive real physical benefits from this type of meditation just by focusing on breathing in through your nose even if you don’t feel like you are making progress letting your thoughts go. ॐ

Our minds pump out thoughts to distract our attention step away observe

I have two opposing thoughts about pain. Most of the time I say to myself, “A little pain never hurt anybody”. But occasionally I contradict myself with something short and sweet: “Pain hurts”. 

Wisdom from our waiter on our anniversary lunch date: “Sometimes the only way out is in.”

It occurs to me, when dealing with other humans, that everyone wants to drive the car. But everyone can’t drive the car. In a car there is only one steering wheel and one set of pedals. So everyone who is not behind the wheel needs to just sit there, accept that they are not in control and shut the fuck up. This advice applies to every other situation that you find yourself in when you are not in control. Don’t attempt to tell someone how to do their job if things aren’t going your way. Truly, it is not helpful. Leave the driving to the driver. 

If you love Oreos but haven’t tried the Coke flavored Oreos yet, what are you waiting for? Don’t worry about the red dye, I’m sure it’s fine. They are curiously strange yet appealing. 

Humans are freakers. Instead of seeing what’s in front of us and believing what we see, we believe the worries, stories, and drama of our minds. Or worse, we believe the lies and manipulations of other crazy humans. We humans require a lot of handholding too. So often our initial reaction is panic. Why? What good does panic do us? Especially when the stimulus is usually such a small thing. Panic does not help us accomplish what needs to be done. In that way, it is similar to the noise in our mind, just another distraction stirring up drama, that has little to do with reality, as it distracts us from the task at hand.

I’ve probably mentioned this lyric before from “Take Me Home” by Concrete Blonde. “Life is beautiful and terrible and strange.” Today, my friend, Chris wrote, “It’s all sad, weird, and beautiful at the same [time].” He sums up our whole existence in so few words.

I find myself spiraling back around to the same few ideas. I come back from a different angle with more experiences under my belt. Maybe even with a little better understanding but I’m still working on the same few ideas over and over again. < hold that thought > I am human thus I complain. I haven’t liked complaining for a long time but I still do it. I’ve tried to change my approach to complaining though. Instead of just dumping out negativity, I try to make it entertaining for my audience. Either giving my listener a chance to laugh at me or laugh at what I’m complaining about. But it’s really still not a good use of my time. There is a difference between complaint and critique but even an accurate, well-worded critique doesn’t usually produce results. The idea here that I keep spiraling back to is that things are what they are. The circumstances we find ourselves in unfold in ways that are largely out of our control. Do we complain or do we accept & adjust? The world isn’t here for us and it’s a narrow point of view to think that it is. We feel pain because we want our circumstances to be different than they are. We don’t often have control over the circumstances but we do have control over the gap between what we want and what happens. We can narrow that gap and lessen our emotional response to our circumstances. We start each day with a certain amount of time and energy in the tank. Spending some of that time and energy on complaining is not a wise transaction.

What would you do if you were not afraid? That’s not my line and I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned it before but it sticks with me. Maybe it’s easy to dismiss worded that way. What would you do if you were more confident? What would you do if you didn’t listen to the voice in your head and all the excuses it’s giving you not to do anything new? What would you do if you didn’t care about the outcome? What would you do if you believed that it’s ok to fail? 

No one is bad at meditating. At worst, you’re quieting sitting with your thoughts. That’s kind of the point anyway. To notice that “your” thoughts aren’t really yours. Your mind is a thought producing machine that works independently from the real you. 

Like water coming up through the cracks in the foundation of our homes, our big issues will resurface if not dealt with. They underlie our foundation. They may be hidden but they are still there below the surface and when conditions are right they will reappear.

At the core of anxiety is self doubt. If we believed that we could get through it (whatever “it” is) we wouldn’t be feeling so anxious about it. Remind yourself what you’ve already been through. You will get through this too.

Learn to become comfortable being uncomfortable. See above. So much of life is uncomfortable, and out of our control. Get used to it. It’s ok that we are not really in control. 

Don’t know who said this…“Observe. Don’t absorb.” That reminds me of “Don’t React. Respond.” That one’s from Pearl Jam. But that idea of not absorbing is big. How often do we absorb the energy that’s coming at us. If someone gives us a shitty attitude, we get upset about it. But it’s their attitude, not ours. I don’t want their shitty attitude, so why do I allow myself to absorb it? When people act shitty they are announcing to the world who they are. We don’t need to participate in their display of assholery. 

It feels kind of foolish to give into this line of thinking but it does feel like a lot of people are going through some difficult things right now. It definitely gives some perspective to my own challenges. Mine are a lot smaller than the challenges many people I know are experiencing. It does begin to pile up though even when it’s not directly affecting us. It’s a huge bummer to know that people are suffering. But I also learned something and was reminded of something over the past couple of weeks. Learned: just show up. Putting yourself in the presence of someone who is going through something shows that you care and it does matter. Reminded: everyday is a blessing. It doesn’t always feel like it but that doesn’t make it untrue. 

Summer’s Almost Gone

Kids are definitely the worst part about parenting.

Looking inward is necessary to grow but looking outward is necessary to live.

The world continues to be on fire this summer. Literally and figuratively. I completely understand that we all don’t and won’t see everything the same way but I completely don’t understand why/how people support a “leader” who is telling them that the goal is to take away their rights, take away control of their own bodies, and use methods like censorship to control what they think. 

Sometimes it’s hard to enjoy the downtime. And sometimes it’s hard to find the downtime.

This is probably the trick to a good life all the time but it seems particularly difficult to sort out in middle age: BALANCE. There are so many things we have to do. And so much of our time is already accounted for with work, appointments and obligations with/for kids. Then we have to fit in taking care of our health, which can end up feeling like another have to do instead of a want to do. But damn, we’ve gotta fit in lazy time and fun time and play time too! We’re not really living if we aren’t playing and having fun. Balance is hard.

Pretty sure this is my longest gap between posts. It’s not that I don’t have any ideas, it’s that I haven’t had the chances to sit still quietly or the headspace to do anything with the ideas. Here’s at least a mishmash of little things since it’s been a while.

As I age the idea that it’s all in our minds grows stronger and stronger. Recently, I have been recovering from a surgery and the mental part of it has been as important as the physical. Our body will respond to what we put it through but we have to have the mindset to do that work. When your body is screaming “no” then your mind echoes “no” you have to be able to ignore them both and push past those false limits. 

We can’t wait for things to be perfect. Perfect will never get here. Our lives are happening now, right in front of us.

How often are we able to turn off or at least turn down the constant background noise? It’s the mental background noise that I’m talking about. “What am I going to do next?” “I have this, this, and this to do today.” “I need to be here at this time but still do this before I leave.” Sometimes it feels like I’m not living. I’m just checking off boxes on my mental to do list. Are we living when we’re just chasing a to do list? I don’t think so. We have to turn down the volume on that mental background noise in order to really hear and really live.

I love an easy, steady rain on a Spring or Summer day. It sets a mood.

The sweet spot between putting no limits on ourselves and having no expectations on ourselves is the key to high achievement. That allows us to be fully engaged in the moment without any pressure of expectations or any filters from what we think our limits are. The pressure of expectations and the cloud of self-imposed limits get in between us and the moment. To see the moment clearly we need to be looking at the moment, not looking at expectations or limits.

I don’t know who said this. I’ve heard it or read it several times. I’ve always liked it and came across it again recently. “Don’t lose sight of what you have while chasing what you want.”

Somewhere, somewhen, our idea of how to handle ourselves got a little screwed up. The idea that it’s a sign of weakness to cry or to admit to feeling down is strange. We shouldn’t cry if we’re sad but we can yell at someone because we’re angry they pulled out in front of us in traffic? How is losing yourself to anger a sign of strength? Feeling our emotions and being in tune with them is not weakness, it is authenticity. Giving away our self-control to whatever emotion overtakes us is weakness. Too many of our “leaders” speak out of anger. I don’t want leaders who are ruled by their emotions. I want leaders who are aware of their emotions, are not ashamed of their emotions, but are still able to stay in control of themselves despite their emotions.

2024. Why haven’t I been writing? It’s been a strange time. There’s a few different factors that when put together form the explanation. It’s not just the writing. It’s a general sense of haziness and lack of focus.

I had been looking forward to a day near the end of 2023. I had been seeing that day on the horizon the whole year and was working toward it. I had goals set and I was focused all year on those goals and that day. 2023 was a journey towards that day. 

And the day came and went. Then what? I didn’t abandon everything I’d been doing or give up on what I’d accomplished but the focus and intensity weren’t there anymore. It’s natural to have a let down in that situation. I recognized that and wasn’t concerned about it. 

The end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 was an in between time while I regrouped and figured out what was next. But I never quite got there. Everyone in my house was sick in January. January was incredibly gray even by New England standards. And it was wet. That’s a tough combination in the winter. If you can deal with the grayness and cold you still have the potential to get outside but when it’s wet that’s an unpleasant threesome.

We were just slogging our way through January and the start of 2024. Before 2024 started I was excited about it but once it got here I was still transitioning from pushing toward those 2023 goals and then the sickness and the weather of January…it just slowed the whole process down of getting to what’s next. 

And the little stressors kept adding in. Our older dog had been living with heart failure for sometime and in January we put her down. That sucked. I never had to make that decision before. Our last dog died suddenly and spared us of that. This time we had to choose. And she was our kids first dog. Anything unpleasant sucks even more when you have to watch people you care about suffer through it too.

While we had things to celebrate in February there had been an almost constant stream of drama in our lives all year and it continued and perhaps heightened in February. If the things that are adding to the pile are little, the pile is still getting bigger. 

I could step back and look at the big picture and see that we were fine. The big stuff was ok. More than ok. But the lives we were living day to day were stressful and the weather was gray, wet, and cold (thankfully February’s weather was an improvement on January).

There was a point near the end of February when I might have lost my mind a little. 

But what I found throughout all of this was that even though I was unfocused and the view was foggy, I wasn’t floundering. My baseline or set point was different than it used to be. The work of the previous year (and really all the years) had made a difference. Being aimless in my teens or twenties was vastly different than being aimless now. I had routines and rituals in place to keep me on track even if I didn’t know where that track was going. 

So what am I doing here? Why am I telling you all of this? It’s not a confessional. When I write these things I’m trying to draw some conclusions. I’m not trying to tell my story. When I write about my own experiences I’m trying to do it in a way that is relatable. Or if you can’t relate to what I’m writing about I’m at least trying to make it entertaining so that you can laugh at me. 

This year has been strange so far. I’m still sorting it out and trying to figure out where I’m headed but it’s fine. It’s not a big deal. I’m not thrown off by not knowing what I’m doing or what I’m aiming at. We all don’t age the same way, but for those of us that are paying attention and trying to learn and grow there really are advantages that come with age. It’s harder for us to lose our balance. I’m not afraid that the view is foggy or that I can’t really see where the road is going because I’ve been driving for a long time now and I’ve driven through worse weather than this. 

For those of you that relate to that, congratulations to you. But we’re all not old. The young among us FEEL what they’re experiencing. They haven’t been practicing as long. Their baseline isn’t as well established. They haven’t been through it as many times and can’t fall back on previous experiences. It hurts more. It feels more serious. Sometimes it feels like the end. 

When we’re old we know it’s not the end. There are lyrics from my favorite Pearl Jam song that I always think about: “And if our lives became too long would it add to our regret? And the young, they can lose hope ’cause they can’t see beyond today. The wisdom that the old can’t give away, hey”

We can avoid that regret by being present in each moment and by passing along what we learn. Be kind to the youngsters, they don’t know what we know yet. Tell them to hang on.

This idea about what soul fitness means makes perfect and total sense to me.

Christmas is complicated. It’s fun but it comes with expectations. We look forward to it and build it up but then it’s over quickly. We get to see family but we have to see family. Sometimes that’s a drag or at least a lot of driving. And what the capitalist consumer driven society we inhabit has turned Christmas into is sad and ugly.

Speaking of the sad, ugly consumer driven society we exist in, if you work retail you see the level of waste. For every holiday, tons of crap is delivered to every store. But more and more I see a lot left on the shelves after the holiday. At first I wondered if people had finally gotten sick of this constant cycle of consuming but then it occurred to me that there’s just so many stores and other outlets to get this crap now and that’s why there’s so much left over everywhere. A lot of that leftover crap just gets thrown out. Yes, the crap that doesn’t sell gets thrown away. What an abominable waste of our resources. We live in a country where many people don’t have enough to eat and don’t have affordable healthcare but we are allocating our resources to produce a bunch of crap that no one wants and then it gets thrown out when it sits on the store shelves too long.

I’m sure I sound like a grumpy old man but shit’s just not the same as it was. Certainly, some things change for the better over time but you know that’s not what I was talking about. The general vibe now is resignation. It didn’t used to be like that. Yes, our country and culture has always been fucked up. But, in my experience, when dealing with a business, there used to be more accountability. People used to actually try to solve a customer’s problem but now the customer is really at the mercy of a company that’s so big that there’s rarely anyone to deal with who has any power to provide real help. Even if they know the policies of the company are stupid, they can’t do anything. We opened a box on Christmas that had been purchased about a month before. It was an electronic item and the box did not have the power cord in it. The representative for the company stated that they could do nothing because of the age of the product. It is common to buy a Christmas present ahead of time. This is not a surprising situation. I know that this is where we are now but I was still surprised that this company wouldn’t do anything at all. What’s the big deal? Do they really think that we’d call them just to get an extra power cord for free? They cost $6. The guy on the phone said he understood how we were feeling and he sounded like he meant it but that’s it. That’s all that was going to happen. He couldn’t do shit and his supervisor couldn’t do shit and the people who could do anything don’t fucking care about you, me, or their employees. They care about buying another yacht. Resignation. The employees know that the company they work for sucks and doesn’t care about them or their customers. We, as customers, know that the company we are purchasing from sucks and doesn’t care about us or their employees. The company was Dell, by the way. The vendor, Best Buy, was equally awful. 

We live in a modern day feudal system. See above.

December/January is a great time of year for sunrises. The Sun is rising so late that it’s easy to catch a sunrise. Watching a sunrise is an awe-inspiring experience. It is a direct line to Reality. Not the make believe nonsense we are surrounded with and our mind is cluttered with regularly, but the real Reality.

Gratitude. It does a body good.

Resistance is futile. It just causes us pain. I’m going into 2024 focusing on accepting what’s in front of me.

We all have to deal with people that we don’t particularly enjoy, right? The other side of the coin is that they might not enjoy dealing with us either. I know that there are people out there who don’t like dealing with me and they think I’m a jerk. Please, my three loyal readers, stay calm. It’s true. There are people in the world who dislike me. It’s ok. Just like it’s ok that there are people that I don’t really enjoy dealing with. Why do we get so hung up on stuff like that? It really doesn’t matter at all. We’re all just doing our own thing. We gotta deal with each other when we gotta and then we just go back to our lives. It’s ok that we aren’t all in love with each other.

I am feeling the nostalgia of youth and of my children’s younger days. I am nostalgic for them sitting on my lap when we watch a movie. That will never happen again. I am keenly aware that the window of time is closing with my kids. I have always been aware of these types of windows in time. Being raised by my grandparents, instead of my parents, did it. They were a generation older. Kids can see their parents as immortal but when your grandparents are raising you, even when they’re healthy and strong, there is no illusion about their age and where they are in their journey. We can complain about time passing and these windows closing but that isn’t helpful. It’s better to just keep an awareness of these passing stages and live each one fully.

All of a sudden there’s just less time with your kids. It is the flip of a switch not a slow transition. They are in school and you work. If they do any other activities, those activities take place in the afternoons and evenings after school (and weekends). That’s time when you could be hanging out with them. By the time the activities are over, it’s time to wrap up the day and get ready for the next day. We go from hanging out and playing with our kids to mostly just seeing them as we drive them to their own activities.

We move on from Christmas so quickly. For some people it’s back to work and the regularness of our routines the very next day. There’s room for so much emotion around Christmas and the end of one year and the beginning of another. Where we live, the darkness and the weather play a role in it too. Lots of darkness and downtime. Christmas is a different kind of holiday. It comes at us with more depth. We have feelings about it that stick with us from our childhoods but there’s the reality of how it’s not the same as an adult. There’s nostalgia. And even if you aren’t a New Year’s Resolution person, the end of one year and beginning of another is a normal time to reassess, reevaluate, and regroup. There’s a lot going on this time of year and it feels like when we return to the normal routine too quickly we miss the opportunity for reflection.

Staring at phones is just a different version of an old thing. Being able to take our phones with us all the time is what compounds it but we’ve been staring at screens for decades. How many times did you come home from school as a kid and just sit your ass in front of the TV and watch cartoons? How about Saturday mornings? We were being lazy and isolated and antisocial back then. It’s just worse and weirder with phones. Not just because of their portability but because it’s not just a TV show. It’s movies, music, games, internet. We all do it. I don’t watch a lot of TV but I do love sports. But how many games do we need to watch? How humans spend their downtime is weird. What were people doing before TV? Did we play more games together? Did we hang out with each other more? I don’t think staring at a screen counts as living. It’s sitting on the sideline.

No one can grieve for you. I know a few people dealing with loss right now. They’re on different timelines and probably in different stages of the process. I’ve expressed my condolences. I still think about them and what they’re going through. But I don’t reach out to them every time that I think of them. You need room to grieve. You need time to deal with the business of someone dying. If we reached out every time we think of someone, in that situation, it would be too much. I know it feels good to be supported but you don’t always want to be thinking about it. If we’re constantly reaching out then we become a distraction and maybe even an annoyance. There’s gotta be some sweet spot where we check in from time to time to make sure everything is ok while still giving enough space for them to be able to move through the process. Often, I handle my own emotions and losses better than other people’s losses. When I’m the one dealing with it, I have to be able to still function and take care of my business. But when it’s someone else, I can feel pretty bad for them. We know what it feels like to experience a loss and it sucks for someone we care about to suffer. Then I end up feeling stupid for being so upset about something that doesn’t even really affect me. Whatever we do or don’t do, no one can grieve for you. That’s your journey to take.

My god is the Sun. It feels a little cheesy to write that because it’s the name of a song but it’s true so I’m sticking with it. I totally understand why people have worshipped the Sun as a god. The Sun provides us with light and warmth making life possible. Even on cloudy days, the Sun is there behind the clouds still brightening the darkness. And if that isn’t enough, the Sun is the most reliable thing in our lives. It is always there, returning to us every morning to start a brand new day.

That’s the part that gets me. The never ending series of new beginnings. People say that America is the land of second chances, whatever that means, but every day is a new chance. I’ve already had thousands of them. Whether you are there to bear witness or not, the Sun will rise.

The constant repetition of new days has two sides. The repetition can feel monotonous. Whatever problems, anxieties, and miseries we ended the previous day with will still be there to be endured in the morning. Each sunrise brings a new day but not necessarily a clean slate. But another chance isn’t the same thing as a clean slate. A clean slate is boring and too easy. Another chance gives us something to sink our teeth into and the opportunity to grow.

Each new day also brings more beauty, more joy, laughs, and smiles. This life is magical. The fact that we exist at all is difficult to fathom. No amount of science can explain away the magic of our existence. Knowing that the Earth is rotating while revolving around the Sun doesn’t make the sunrise less magical. It’s still powerful to experience. 

Even when the sunrise brings a new day that still contains the anxiety, grief, or problems of the day before I still find myself in awe. Our existence is awe-inspiring. Our minds’ constant onslaught of thoughts and worries distracts us and aims our attention at the noise. Beyond and underneath the noise, the unbelievableness and awesomeness of our existence is always there. Witnessing the sunrise is tuning into the awe and the magic. It can not be denied in that moment. Pause to be alive. Pause to notice your aliveness and recognize the magic of it. 

We are in a tough spot. We are inundated with news of despair, violence and hate. We are intentionally mislead and divided by the greedy. It’s easy to feel lost, to wonder what we can do. But most of what we read about or hear about is out of our control. 

That realization could make us feel more lost or even helpless. But the truth is that we do have control over our choices, our actions, and how we live our lives. Despite all the miserableness currently in our world, we still get to choose how we live our lives.

We often think that what we do is so small that it won’t make a difference. That is false. This morning I was in my front yard, with my dog, when a neighbor drove by. She is more than a neighbor. She’s a friend. She stopped, rolled down her window, and said that she was sorry to hear that my Great Aunt had died. 

That was completely unexpected. And it was such a small, simple thing. But its impact wasn’t small. It was quite meaningful to me. 

Too many times I’ve wondered how to help someone. How to make them feel better or how to do something meaningful for them in a difficult time. It usually feels like there’s nothing I could do to make a difference. How can I say or do something that will make a difference in the midst of their grief or hardship?

When my mother died, a few of my friends came to the funeral. They didn’t know my mother. I understood that they were coming for me but it wasn’t until we were all there that I understood how impactful it was for them to be there. Before that moment, I thought it was nice of them but I was consumed with my grief and with details. I didn’t think it would really matter to me that they were there. I was so wrong (that list keeps getting longer). I will never forget that they were there and I will never stop being grateful for it. 

They did not change my grief. But I felt supported. It sounds so silly but I don’t know how else to say it. What a powerful thing our presence can be. Just carving out the time in their schedules to show up. I’m still thinking about it. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it changed my life. 

We can do great things with our little lives. We can’t take away grief or undo what is troubling someone but we can let them know that we understand. We can acknowledge their pain and acknowledge that what they’re going through is real. We can say that we care. We can be present. 

It doesn’t matter that we can’t take away someone’s pain. What we do have to offer is so plain and simple that it matters.   

Don’t give in to despair. Don’t be immobilized by the headlines. Don’t believe that what you have to offer isn’t enough. It’s so easy to positively impact someone’s life.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing. It can be even harder to say nothing.

Perspective is hard to gain but easy to lose.

Nothing makes you feel worse than parenting. It’s the best ego destroyer available, even better than marriage. To all the Zen monks in their monasteries: You want to destroy your ego? Try parenting.

The shit that makes us miserable is what keeps us alive. Do you ever think about that when you hear about a celebrity suicide? If that person’s kids weren’t already financially set for life do you think they would have killed themselves? As selfish as we can be as humans, it’s our responsibility to our loved ones that keeps us going in our darkest, most desperate moments. If I didn’t have to have a full time job I’d probably be a drunk. If I had plenty of money and no job to go to…yeah, I’d be drinking. It’s the ongoing “musts” that we complain about that keep us alive.

At some point in our lives will we get to a place where the details of whatever it is that we’re dealing with or feeling miserable about don’t even matter anymore? There’s always going to be something to deal with. Shouldn’t we be able to stop complaining, or at least minimize the complaining, and stop having so many feelings about every little thing and just handle what’s in front of us with some grace?

I was texting with a friend about a difficult week. Difficulties at home and at work. Parenting stuff and just being completely overwhelmed at work and knowing that the company is greedy and soulless. My friend replied that it sounded like a perfect storm. Then he said enjoy it. But the enjoyment part was referring to a beer he was going to drop off. He texted back to clarify that. “Enjoy the beer not the storm.” But being able to enjoy the storm is the secret to life. It’s not a natural way to look at it for most of us. And it takes a lot of effort and practice to be able to do it. Maybe most of us will never get all the way there but we can move the needle and change the way that we perceive the storms in our lives. Even being able to realize, while we are in a storm, that we’re going to get through it and that we can learn and grow and change from what happens in the storm is a big shift. Acknowledging to ourselves, while we’re struggling in a storm, that these are the moments that we learn from is not the same thing as enjoying the storm but it’s a turn away from just suffering. It’s all the cliche stuff about enjoying the journey and the obstacle is the path. Easier said than done, but our lives will be filled with storms. When it rains we get wet. Better to accept that than to be miserable about it.