Embracing the Moment

 You experience sunshine, rain, typhoons, clouds, snow, and fog; you experience birth, death, separation, sickness, aging, failure, success - this is the flow of life, go with it and gain your peace. Life is fair to everyone, whether you are rich or poor, beautiful or plain, well-educated or not. The movie stage and the actors looks different, but everyone experiences the same emotional ups and downs. No one is better and no one is worse. The only difference is how you experience life and give meaning to it.
(Su-Zhen)

Jessie O'Neill describes the struggles of the rich folks, especially the malaise of the children of the super-rich in 'The Golden Ghetto' and many of you are probably scratching your head and ask how this can be possible? How can you be miserable when you have everything? The answer to this riddle is the old familiar 'money can't buy you love' theme. All it does is to buy you specialness, which happens to be a spiritual kiss of death. Everyone faces the same psychological monsters; they only come in different shapes and sizes dependent on what your life circumstances are.

The other day a colleague bursted out that I supposedly have everything. I didn't really want to go into a philosophical discussion with her, but had I, I would have told her that her situation is not really any different from mine. I know that she lives in a pressure cooker; the fears of not having enough money, the worries not to be quite as good professionally as everybody else, the fears her children might not have the best education, and so much more. On the surface, my life circumstances appear so much more secure and appealing to her, yet, if she woke up in my shoes tomorrow, new monsters would pop up. It would be the same pressure cooker, just being placed on a different stove.

We have the choice to step out of our emotional ups and downs. All you have to do is to be open to the next moment no matter what it brings. One day you will realize that anticipating the next moment is meaningless. Embrace the moment and learn that everything life brings your way is spiritually meaningful. With this simple realization your life suddenly becomes complete and peace prevails, no matter where you go; no matter what the season, no matter what your income level and no matter what life has in store for you.