Of Ancient Butterflies
This moment, this thought, this story,
and these next ones,
are all the impermanent outcomes of a billion-year old butterfly effect.
We spend our entire lives learning to be happy, to achieve more, to get our way.
We are disappointed when it doesn’t work out.
We are setting ourselves up for failure.
We spend our entire lives learning about the ways of the world,
From parents and teachers and gurus and talking heads.
From guides and instructions and religions and schoolbooks.
Everyone thinks they have the answer.
(Even me)
So we strive and we try and we reach.
We miss sometimes.
Not to worry.
The way knows the way.
Acceptance, presence, and gratitude.
Detachment from outcomes, noticing resistance, and letting it go.
These are my gateways to freedom and happiness today.
And they have all been here the whole time.
I see now that I don’t have to look for them.
I just have to look past the illusions, the ego, the things getting in the way of seeing them.
I notice shame and frustration and regret.
I notice countless memories of things I wish I’d done differently.
I should be upset with all of them, with myself, to the same extent I should hate that butterfly.
I wonder:
Where are you holding on too tightly?
Where are you maintaining the illusion of control?
What can you let go of?
What’s getting in the way?
(Photo: 12/19/18, El Calafate, Argentina)