How Do You Want to Be in the World?
I read something this week that said we, as humans, are eternal predators. We are constantly searching, scanning, fixating on the next thing to hunt down—like a new job, a bigger house, a better body, a richer significant other.
If we catch whatever it is we are sure we can’t live without, how long before we feel compelled to dash after the next bit of prey? And the next?
It’s a way of life that can leave us panting for more.
Not to mention the trail behind us might feel like it is littered with carcasses—of the coulda, woulda, shouldas. Of the things we were sure we had to have, but once we got them? Meh.
It isn’t that going after things is wrong. It’s more the continual state of chase. Like a cheetah, if we dash after this then that then this then that, we are sure to end up exhausted, weak, spent.
I often felt like that back home. The longer I am here in Japan, the more I feel like things inside of me are opening, softening, settling.
It’s an invitation to be more intentional about choosing my ways of being.
That got me thinking—if we don’t want to live as predators, what other choices are available to us?
As soon as I asked that question, a multitude of others followed. I offer them to you, and I’d love to hear if any resonate with you.
Do you want to live life as a line or a circle? Or both?
Like this spot in a nearby cemetery, can you welcome all that is?
What about a way of being that is closer to a horse? What wide fields and wild grace could you find?
How about a bird? Do you have two strong wings of effort and ease to help you fly and float, surge and soar?
Or how about a deer? What untamed atlases—inside and out—might be calling to you?
Or can you grow so still, grounded, and bemused, that the world declares you worthy to bear three moss freckles?
Then there’s always the moon. What would it be like to be a body that lives by its own rhythms?
Now full.
Now empty.
Always ready to live light and shine.