Sit and watch the world go by
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Greensboro, NC
Posts: 683
Sit and watch the world go by
Fellow SR friends,
I discovered this gem this morning and wanted to share. It expresses exactly how I feel now that I feel free of DOC. The fog has cleared and the world, along with my mind, is crystal clear.
I'm getting out now, I'm doing the hard things, I'm getting out of my old comfort zones, I'm rejoining the world.
It feels pretty good : )
Be inspired and look out your windows. There is a whole world waiting for you. No matter how bad you feel, how depressed you are... Remeber that each and every one of you are beautiful. Despite the gloom and pain in the world, remember that the beauty in it out weighs it all. Be a part of it!
Who sits and watches the world go by? It is the smoker at the café. It is the job seeker at her laptop. It is the man who has retired, having worked too hard all his life, slightly broken now. Watching the world is what you do when you stop feeling like you need to be somewhere else. Perhaps it happens in fleeting moments. Perhaps it comes as one day in many. But if you have never stopped to watch the world go by you live in a constant state of reaching. And reaching implies that you have not attained. And if you have not attained then perhaps you live in a constant state of discontentment. What happens if you accept that there is nothing to attain? Do you stop endeavoring?
There is a new wrinkle on my forehead, a crease that marks one long line of worry. You cannot get rid of those lines with creams containing retinol. The only thing to do is release the furrow in ones brow. The tension must be let go of. I find myself rubbing my crease to encourage my brow to relax. I find myself breathing a little more slowly so not to get anxious. I find myself releasing the need to attain something that I can’t even quite define, but that I know keeps me up at night. But I can’t release it.
Once I think I have let go, I rediscover the need to strive again, to reach, to attain, to achieve, to be something more by definition. The crease on my forehead is still there. Maybe I will buy the retinol cream. But it is not the wrinkle, it is the cause of the wrinkle. And thinking about my wrinkle makes it worse. It feeds it, giving it power.
Return to being a Zen cow. Master the art of non-attachment. Take more yoga classes. Start to become obsessed with the new muscles in my shoulders. That looks nice. I will go more. This is not non-attachment. This is not being unlinked to the result. This is not being in the moment. This is not anything close to enlightenment.
Sit and watch the world go by.
I sit and watch the world go by. One minute, one cup of coffee, one yoga class, one day, one week, one paycheck, one month, one season, one quarter, one birthday, one holiday, one death, one birth, one year, one life, at a time.
I discovered this gem this morning and wanted to share. It expresses exactly how I feel now that I feel free of DOC. The fog has cleared and the world, along with my mind, is crystal clear.
I'm getting out now, I'm doing the hard things, I'm getting out of my old comfort zones, I'm rejoining the world.
It feels pretty good : )
Be inspired and look out your windows. There is a whole world waiting for you. No matter how bad you feel, how depressed you are... Remeber that each and every one of you are beautiful. Despite the gloom and pain in the world, remember that the beauty in it out weighs it all. Be a part of it!
Who sits and watches the world go by? It is the smoker at the café. It is the job seeker at her laptop. It is the man who has retired, having worked too hard all his life, slightly broken now. Watching the world is what you do when you stop feeling like you need to be somewhere else. Perhaps it happens in fleeting moments. Perhaps it comes as one day in many. But if you have never stopped to watch the world go by you live in a constant state of reaching. And reaching implies that you have not attained. And if you have not attained then perhaps you live in a constant state of discontentment. What happens if you accept that there is nothing to attain? Do you stop endeavoring?
There is a new wrinkle on my forehead, a crease that marks one long line of worry. You cannot get rid of those lines with creams containing retinol. The only thing to do is release the furrow in ones brow. The tension must be let go of. I find myself rubbing my crease to encourage my brow to relax. I find myself breathing a little more slowly so not to get anxious. I find myself releasing the need to attain something that I can’t even quite define, but that I know keeps me up at night. But I can’t release it.
Once I think I have let go, I rediscover the need to strive again, to reach, to attain, to achieve, to be something more by definition. The crease on my forehead is still there. Maybe I will buy the retinol cream. But it is not the wrinkle, it is the cause of the wrinkle. And thinking about my wrinkle makes it worse. It feeds it, giving it power.
Return to being a Zen cow. Master the art of non-attachment. Take more yoga classes. Start to become obsessed with the new muscles in my shoulders. That looks nice. I will go more. This is not non-attachment. This is not being unlinked to the result. This is not being in the moment. This is not anything close to enlightenment.
Sit and watch the world go by.
I sit and watch the world go by. One minute, one cup of coffee, one yoga class, one day, one week, one paycheck, one month, one season, one quarter, one birthday, one holiday, one death, one birth, one year, one life, at a time.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: NYC/NJ
Posts: 431
True, but it's proven through many studies that people are generally happier when they are working towards goals and accomplishing things. It's not so much attaining the thing, but the process of growing that people enjoy, whether they realize that or not. It's an evolutionary instinct. Humans living before us didn't live very long if they were content and just sat around. In today's society we are able to do more of it, but the instincts of always doing and worrying remain the same as they are engrained in our DNA. This is the reason for such prevalent stress and anxiety in the world- at one point in our evolution it served a useful survival purpose, meaning life or death. But I get what you are saying about being content and not looking for outside things, or future things, and to live in the moment.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Oregon
Posts: 147
Ivan - thanks for all of your wonderful words of wisdom. So nice to see somebody stepping up and being there for everyone that is in the beginning stages of w/d's. Keep up the good work, SR needs someone just like you!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,288
I sometimes felt like "now what" do I just sit and watch the grass grow? Looking at the same trees in my back yard as if they're something new, even though they've been growing in that same spot for years "letting the years go by"?
Boring. My whole life I've been an adventurer, a seeker, a mover, and now, sometimes I feel like a piece of **** on a log.
I know I've calmed down and my world changed but I can't stand feeling like I'm just a piece of the furniture.
Boring. My whole life I've been an adventurer, a seeker, a mover, and now, sometimes I feel like a piece of **** on a log.
I know I've calmed down and my world changed but I can't stand feeling like I'm just a piece of the furniture.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: in the shadow of the rockies
Posts: 338
I had to first get willing to do the heroic work- the inner stuff that i had looked down on for so long .
It then became clear that the "prison" was my own making.
I was free to participate in my own life.
And i reaquainted myself with a sense of adventure in everything i did- from paying my bills on time to skiing the steep and deep. From being there for my son's homework to twisting my Drifter thru 2 lane blacktop.
Like i was 8 yrs old again. arms wide open, running out into the world asking "what shall we do today?!"
It then became clear that the "prison" was my own making.
I was free to participate in my own life.
And i reaquainted myself with a sense of adventure in everything i did- from paying my bills on time to skiing the steep and deep. From being there for my son's homework to twisting my Drifter thru 2 lane blacktop.
Like i was 8 yrs old again. arms wide open, running out into the world asking "what shall we do today?!"
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