A note to self.

My mom has always seemed to believe she was personally assigned to keep everything  going  and she behaved as if the world of existence depended on her making sure everyone arrived on time, stood in the correct place, said the correct thing, and did not, under any circumstances, wander off into their own mysterious weather.

If she did not plan it, disaster waited. If you did not follow the plan, ruin began putting on its shoes. 

And she is not alone in this. Most people,(clearly not every single person)  in one way or another, seem to carry a private little headquarters inside their skull where they believe the universe is being manufactured. They sit there with levers and switches, sweating over the machinery, convinced that if they stop worrying, if they stop arranging, if they stop narrating every event, the sun will simply forget to rise.

But then one day, maybe by accident, maybe because exhaustion finally becomes wiser than desire, One stops. 

Not forever. Not dramatically.  One  pauses. One begins to  remove the little hooks from ones environment. The glowing  screens all the time. The advertisements whispering that one is incomplete. The manufactured emergencies. The endless procession of tiny commands disguised as entertainment.

Sit down.

Let the room be the room.

Let your feelings come in wearing whatever costumes they brought. If sadness comes in, let sadness sit. If happiness comes in, let happiness sit. It's not the feelings having a person it's the person having the feelings  . A sad feeling is not the whole self. A happy feeling is not the whole self.  Interesting, yes. Important sometimes, yes. But not necessarily the final authority on anything.

You can be peaceful while sadness is present. One can be peaceful while happiness is present. One can even be peaceful while the mind is making a bad documentary about ones entire life.It seems that you practice at this, it's a practice,  is not about arriving at some polished final version of yourself. That is another trap. The perfected self is just another advertisement, usually with better lighting. The practice is in the returning. Again and again. Less noise. Less grasping. Less running around with a fire extinguisher every time a candle flickers.

Ask less, “Who am I?” for a moment. Ask instead, what is here?(or don't) 

A chair is a chair. A banana is a banana. The body breathes. The floor holds. The world hums along with its strange little motors. You are what you are before the explanations arrive. You may try to become something else, and perhaps you will, but notice how often that project becomes another distraction, another costume, another committee meeting inside the head.

So sit.Be quiet.

Not because quiet is holy. Not because stillness is magic. But because if you stop splashing around for a while, the water clears.

And when the water clears, things begin to show themselves.

Not necessarily from two wise talking fish. Not golden doors. Not secret masters in velvet robes whispering the password to the cosmos. Sometimes the great revelation is that you feel better when you brush your teeth every day at the same time. Sometimes the great revelation is that you do not need to answer every thought. Sometimes the great revelation is that the world kept going even when you stopped managing it for ten minutes.

This is how balance sneaks in. Not with trumpets. With repetition. With attention. With fewer distractions. With one small promise kept.

Then another. Then another. And gradually, without making a religion out of it, without declaring yourself enlightened or doomed or special, you begin to float.

Not above the world.

In it.

With it.

Float.