Book of Awakening

Today is the third day of the year and I am reading the third passage in  Mark Nepo's "The Book of Awakening" - Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.  Being present in my life, paying attention to and loving those around me is something I am conscientiously working on.  My life has been full of second chances...learning how to fall, to get up and to laugh at myself.

I am so blessed to have the skill of laughing at myself.  I don't know how I would've survived without it.  I don't even know how I acquired it.  I only know that I've had it all my life.  As I age, I realize what a gift it is.  I call it my spirit!

Of all the people I have met, it is those that  also laugh at themselves that I can relate to and understand.  They are going with the flow of their lives and realize that as humans, we are not perfect.   I try to do my best, make good choices and to accept what happens and that turns out to be a good day of life.  Some days are better than others.  But I find that I am only tolerant of people that cannot accept their imperfections.  I find it hard to understand their struggle for perfection; not letting go of themselves in their moment of struggle.  How can I help others to learn to laugh at themselves?  How can I help them find their spirit?

Our culture bombards us with an ideal to be perfect when we are human.  Or rather, it tries to tell us who we are and how to be.  The media constantly tells us what we need.  When my spirit is weak, I tend to fall into some of the cultural traps and I loose myself.  It seems that it is during that time, that God gives me something - a birth, a divorce, a fire, or a death - some life event that forces me to struggle and/or to suffer so that I have to fully rely on my being, my beliefs, and my spirit to get me through.   Thank God for that!