Of My Life

Of my life: 

for much of my life I believed that I never lived up to the expectations of others, and worse, that my own sense of being accomplished was largely unfulfilled. I lived my life with an almost always present feeling that I had disappointed myself and those who knew me, never quite being who I was supposed to be. I was sad, quite often, and that was how my life was, based solely on the beliefs that I was supposed to be something other than I already am. 

sad, indeed. 

 I can't say that I've entirely broken away from this, a belief system in place for a lifetime, installed from the earliest age of being told by others that I had a specific role to play for the operation of the world, that I was at once special in a certain sense, and yet also needed to fit in and play my role well. It was nobody's fault, not even my own, it's just what everyone believed. It's how the world worked. so few ever broke through this line of reasoning and simply lived their life as a free expression of being happy and complete exactly as they are. We all had expectations handed to us in this way, they were never really questioned, and most quickly learned to thrive with these beliefs and are probably most content and even happy. For much of my life I was envious of them. 

here's what's different now, I no longer believe that I was meant to be anything other than what I am right now, and that is life itself, a unique and only once appearing expression of the world's fulfillment, my role already succeeded through just my existence alone. Anything else accomplished is a bonus, my dharma, my own unique path, is in being here, present, and aware that this is so. My happiness is based solely upon this existence, nothing else truly needed, but finding joy too in all the things that are added on, the bonuses that life has offered. 

I'm not completely free, a lifetime of conditioning hasn't entirely been forgotten, but mostly so, those beliefs are held so lightly now, almost weightless in their hold, and life is so much easier without those expectations holding me down through me own sense of disappointment. For the rest of my life I am free to be exactly as I am, what I am, and nothing has to be accomplished. 

I am...

and it's always been so. 

for much of my life it was forgotten. 

but it's remembered now. 

~

Peace, Eric