alive rhymes with thrive
I had these lyrics from Mr Rogers playing within me today: "It's such a good feeling to know you're alive"
And I was like Alive rhymes with Thrive! As a child I would always say: "if it rhymes, it means it's true". I'm not sure whether that applies to everything now but hey! I believe it's true in this case, for sure! How alive are you today? How does it feel to be alive? I know it must be different for everyone. Are we able to recognize this for ourselves? Some may feel like it has to do with "presence". What is presence? The moment we say it, the mind begins the trying to be present kinda thing. From personal experience, I know I'm present with the now moment when I don't have to think about things, like I dont have to tell myself how I should behave or how to act in order to be the person that I'm supposed to be. Who am I supposed to be anyway? I can only be my spontaneous, free Self, however that looks like each and every moment. We're always hearing what we're supposed to be, we're always told what we're supposed to do. Be present. be this or that. Or the other variant: don't be that. Or JUST BE. It gets hilarious just writing it down, because you begin seeing this commanding force that takes away the opportunity to actually ask yourself what you wanna be. That puts a lot pressure on the mind. Maybe it's good not to have expectations at all and accept whatever comes up. Maybe it's about choosing every now moment without going with what the automatic voice says and be playful enough to ask "is this what I really want?"... then go with what rises afterwards.
Maybe presence was never a duty to attend to in order to become happy but about appreciating what life offers each moment with joy and fully enjoying it, whatever it is. Even when it's not something we prefer, we can always choose to do in a way that is enjoyable for us, and that's a magic trick we can learn to apply in everything.