Stop, Breathe, Be

“… feeling joy doesn’t come naturally to me. Working does. I’ve been so focused on getting things done, being successful, meeting that goal, completing that project I tended to bypass experience – the memories that deep-dive into the marrow of the moment – in order to drive forward and complete some agenda, and I regret that. I think there is a fear in that kind of abandonment. Truly being present with others and not hiding behind some shield of work or reason for being there requires confidence that your presence is enough.”

     The above are the words of a respondent to the question “what do you regret?” The query was posed by rabbi and author Steve Leder who wanted to discern what matters most to the people he serves. This response is reminiscent of the statement “on their deathbed nobody says I wish I had spent more time at the office.” It also brings to my mind the wise words of the Chinese philosopher, Confucius, who opined, “The superior man understands what is right. The inferior man understands what sells.” Leder’s question and the response to it are crucial, for they call us to not only reprioritize our time, but to search our soul as well.

     It can be difficult to resist the tug to get things done and the appeal of prioritizing what sells, but when we fail to do so, and instead cling to their allure, we can end up selling our souls and shortchanging the people who mean the most to us. Because we breathe the air of a culture that is all about achievement, success, competition, and the like, it is easy to succumb to the gravitational pull of conventional ways of living, and scary to “deep-dive into the marrow of the moment.”

     If we are honest with ourselves, it is an intimate experience of the moment that is our deepest longing; the desire to savor life, to feel its grit, to relish its fleeting beauty before we move on to whatever might follow our time on this planet. No wonder so many of us feel empty even when we achieve our goals and succeed at what we undertake. If we are to know with our hearts the sometimes fearful fullness of life’s joys and sorrows, we need to STOP, and BREATHE, and BE, even for just a few seconds each day.

     Mythologist Joseph Campbell has stated that “the cave we fear to enter holds the treasure we seek.” The “cave” he speaks of is our soul, the sacred self that we are mostly unaware of though it lies just below the surface of our comings and goings. The “treasure” is experiencing the joy of being alive, and knowing that our presence here is enough.