Some memes

is defined by my choices; who i am is what i do. there was a time in my life, when i would have never, ever admitted to that line being anywhere close to something i would want to accept. even as written, what it does not mean is that i am defined by my job or lack thereof. i am, however, defined by my spiritual practice and the discipline i put into practicing it on a daily basis. i know from experience that when i slack off on doing what has worked, things go sideways for me. not the events in the world, my spiritual discipline does nothing that i can detect to change that, but my internal world and how i act, react and respond to the world around me and those events that can and will drive me to distraction.
if i have a daily practice that works, why would i ever deviate from it? the answer was that when i was hiking across the top of Africa, i preferred to attempt to sleep until i had to get up, rather than read and meditate. i was always tired, living at 13,000 to 15,000 feet above sea level, forcing myself to eat three meals a day. my thoughts during that expedition was to physically do what i needed to do to be okay for the trek ahead of me and allow the spiritual side to lapse. what happened was that i found myself reacting to the group, forming alliances and hardening my mind against those who did not agree with me. i was out of sorts and wanted to isolate and just be left alone, but forced myself to be barely communal. it was not until i got back to civilization that i realized how terrible my internal landscape had become and far off the beaten spiritual track i was. the lesson i learned was that physical and spiritual needs must be met, every day for me, if i am to maintain any sort of balance or serenity in my life.
this morning when i stumbled upon this as my source material, it rang true. as i sat and listened to the void, what i heard was that once i defined myself by what i did for a living or how much material wealth i seemed to have or where i was going on my next vacation. my need to demonstrate who i am by showing what i really was not, has diminished and i see myself better defined by my spiritual practice and its application in my life. i may still have the desire to get approval for others, that is certainly part of my nature, perhaps human nature as well. what i do not have to do, is allow that desire to rule me, as it once did. i am okay with who i am because i practice spiritual discipline, part of which is writing this little ditty on a very regular basis for a very long time. here is where i get to dump my insanity and whither or not anyone ever reads it, really does not matter. when i started i thought i would attract thousands of followers and wrote for the audience. these days, i do not care and write solely for myself. i do this because it helps me to center and celebrate that what i do, is truly who i am, just for today.

∞ DT ∞