This morning, I had some philosophy with my coffee. To be more precise, I listened to a 30 minute Alan Watts talk that was suggested to me by the allknowing video platform that does not need to be named.
As is usually the case with Alan Watts' talks, there was so much wisdom being conveyed that I'm not even gonna try to summarize it. One topic that stuck with me though was the theme of clinging to things and people, a habit that often leads to unhappiness. It made me wonder what I'm clinging to and I realized there isn't much I can think of these days.
One thing I definitely clung to in the past was money, when I actually had some, I was afraid to lose it. These days, I easily give it away, trusting in the abundant universe to bring me more. There's probably still some believes that I'm clinging to, believes that have been built over decades but I'm working hard on getting rid of those that don't serve me any longer.
I learnt, over the years, that the world is ever changing and one way to make life harder than necessary is to resist change. In fact, it's impossible. You might tell yourself that you can't change and try to stay stuck in your so called comfort zone but does it really make you feel good? Perhaps it actually has the opposite effect. Life is all about growth, as nature shows us again and again.
While listening to Alan Watts - and marveling about his way with words ( even though he often talks about things that can hardly be put into words ) - I started looking at the world in a different way. Now I think of it, I probably stepped out of my mind for a bit, not a bad thing for a person like me who burns more calories thinking than most laborers do while working with their hands.
I got extra focused on the beauty of nature and the world felt like an even better place. In fact, now I think of it, it was the moment when Watts started talking about the world being a (beautiful) construct, made up by our mind, that really hit me, not for the first time.
Anyhow, I'm kind of rambling here but today is one of these days when my meals taste even better ( food usually tastes good to me ), the birds seem to sound even more beautiful, the sky is bluer than ever, the wind very agreeable, compensating for the sun's power ( then again, without sun there would be no shadow ) and so on and so forth.
Whether it's my four month meditation streak, the vitamin D, outdoor life, the turning of my house into a home, daily mindfulness and law of attraction practice or a mix of all the aforementioned, it's not too hard for me to smile these days. And believe me, this hasn't always been the case.
I hope you're doing well yourself ( and if you're not, feel you can do better ) you might wanna check out the video that inspired me to write this post and perhaps answer this question:
What are you clinging to that you would like to let go of?