Sunday, March 2, 2014

Focus

I've tried to live my life being mindful of how fortunate I am to live, and to live in such a beautiful place, and to live among such amazing people. Sometimes the troubles and stresses of life make it hard to pay attention to the wonder of it all so it's nice to have a reminder every now and again. The movie About Time was just such a reminder. I got to watch it - appropriately - with my family, and I recommend that all of you go do the same. It's brilliant.

If you know me very well at all you'll know - and if you don't you'll learn - that I believe that the key to practically everything in life is balance. Moderation. The middle path. This particular blog post is another example of said principle. The issue for today is happiness and how to achieve it.

I've lived with people from various economic backgrounds during the course of my life. When I was growing up my family was of a relatively low economic class, although that got higher over the course of time until we were a solidly lower-middle to middle class family. I've been intimately involved with a lady who, when she was growing up, was from a solidly upper class family. And I've been on very close terms with people pretty much from every part of the spectrum. I've found that there are different things that people of different economic classes tend to teach their children and in many cases those things are both helpful and harmful. For example, the poorer people are, the more they seem to emphasize to their children the importance of non-material things. While everyone mentions to their kids that interpersonal relationships, etc are important, the poor seem to get it better. This is a blessing for them because if you are hung up on material wealth as a key to happiness you'll be miserable as a poor person. On the other hand, if you learn the lesson too well it takes away a lot of motivation to improve your circumstances. There is a very fine line that we, as human beings, need to walk. A balance between being happy where we are and being motivated to change our circumstances to make life better. If we are too content with our place in life then we don't improve it, but if we're too focused on where we are headed we miss out on the beauty of right here right now.

This working for the future mindset is just one of the reasons that we miss out on happiness. Another reason is the today sucks mindset. This is that time that we spend focused on what is wrong with life to the extent that we fail to see the beauty that we are constantly surrounded by. Very young children are always a good cure for this part of the spectrum. When my daughter was very small - two or three years old - she loved to pick flowers and bring them to me. She was amazed and entranced by how beautiful flowers were in all of their gorgeous variety.

One of the ways that I can tell that Spring is on its way is from a particular weed that sprouts up. Driving through the suburbs in the winter you'll see everyone's perfectly manicured perfectly brown lawns. Toward Spring they start to get patches of green, but after a short while you'll notice that those patches of green are tinted with purple. Once those weeds (I've since learned that it is called purple deadnettle) start sprouting I know that Spring is not far off and everyone's perfectly manicured lawns will be perfectly green again soon. Well, the reason that children are a good reminder of the beauty that surrounds us constantly (and incidentally what I think Jesus was talking about when he said that we must be like children to enter the Kingdom of God [or, may I say, see that we're already in it?]) is because they haven't learned all of the things that we adults will teach them eventually. My daughter didn't know that the first bunches of  "pretty flowers I brought for you daddy" were just weeds.

I hate that we adults take their innocence and "ignorance" away from them, but that is a rant for another day.

So where is the balance between working for the future and today sucks? How do we maintain a childlike eye for the beauty that surrounds us while still maintaining a drive to improve our life? In my case it's not even that today sucks. It's more that tomorrow could be so powerfully awesome that it draws my vision away from the here and now. It is awesome to see pictures that Curiosity is sending back from Mars every day. It is incredible to read about the Mars Society's simulation missions. It's great fun to think about what we might do or see or eat or build or learn or whatever when we go to Mars. I realized after the movie tonight that I've had my head so far into that very very remotely possible (let's face it, even as one of the1058 I still have less than a 1 in 50 chance of being hired by Mars One, much less going) future that I have not been paying enough attention to how lucky I am.

Going to Mars will be monumental. Whoever goes - I and three friends, or someone else - will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Just don't forget in the interim that today you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Tomorrow you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Every day of your life you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way if only you will be mindful and see what's around you.

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