Tag Archives: quality of life

Ditch the Greed, Find the Good

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In a world drowning in overindulgence, degeneracy, and nefariously naked malevolence,  there is one virus more deadly and culpable than any other.

Greed.

The cracks at the base of every broken heart. The desperation of drug addiction as a means of escape. The tear-stained cheeks of a starving child.  The innocent hands reaching out for compassion and finding a wall of abject antipathy. The baffling realization that a chasm constructed by an imaginary system of wealth and power to oppress, ridicule, demean, and belittle is as fragile as the egos that designed it.

This is the way we choose to occupy the literal blink of an eye opportunity we have to breathe oxygen on this planet.

Seems like the collective cost of effort, time, and resources could be better spent improving the quality of our human experience as opposed to a wild-eyed maniacal race to obtain and maintain the most toys.

Some are drowning in money, most are drowning in debt.

None of this is real. It is a giant constructed illusion to award power and influence to those at the summit. We worship the shiny silver success of excess and spend our days plotting our own path to the promised land. But most of those intrepid mountaineers stepped on the broken backs of the masses to make the ascension. 

Unable to handle the level of pain and suffering constantly endured by the innocent, the overwhelming impetus to take action is paralyzing. So I am left stopped and stalled and defeated. Frozen by the panic, size, and scope of the challenges sitting on the docket, passivity takes the place of initiative, and further down the spiral I slide. 

But a reckoning is waiting in the wings and the majority will no longer silently stand idly by, merely satisfied with the fallen scraps dropped from fortunate tables.

Adolescence Interrupted

A Cinematic Pause

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Nothing is more valuable for the sanctity of your sanity like a thorough reset. Although we have been conditioned to believe that only those who blindly and defiantly sprint toward the finish line should be lauded, more health and happiness is bundled with balance than whatever rewards are gained from ceaseless target practice. The psychological and physical punishment from maniacal ambition is a detrimental recipe for reduced days and a diminished quality of life.

It’s vital we find the opportunity and willingness to hit that pause button when society’s waves start to throw a little too much water into the boat—and drowning is a metaphor easily rescued by the right kind of flotation device.

Meditation can wear countless masks. Sometimes people have no idea they are involved in a meditative practice because it’s simply something they enjoy doing. But wherever you can find opportunities to live in the present moment and release the worries of yesterday or tomorrow, you are involved in a kind of meditation.

There are only two diversions that allow me near-total absorption: tennis and film.

I’ve discussed my passion for tennis, so there’s no need to revisit my obsession in further detail. But I’ve never described the transformative benefits of sitting in a theater or on a couch and letting myself become thoroughly engrossed in a movie.

Although this has probably always been a part of my life—I can remember paragraphs of dialogue from a film I saw 20 years ago, but I can’t remember a conversation I had with someone last week—only in the past few years have I appreciated this cinematic pause from my endlessly spinning wheels and cripplingly compulsive thoughts.

I give myself the permission to unplug from the anxiety and stress of my daily existence. I’m not exactly sure why these are the only two activities that tell the engineer running my obsessive brain to take a coffee break, but I am beyond grateful to have discovered them.

If a respite from the pandemonium that lives between these ears can be found on a silver screen, I’m happy to take my seat and escape the static.

Adolescence Interrupted