Discontent

We are forever longing for something else and something more. The idea of satisfaction is admittedly just that, an idea, an ephemeron leading us on a chase, a sneaking specter seducing us to search for a prize that does not exist. We are never satisfied, at least not for long. But to know there is no fulfillment, just relief, and no lasting happiness, only moments of reverie, is to find within ourselves freedom to forsake the continual quest for self-improvement in exchange for a grand celebration of our imperfection. The search for a remedy to our discontents in piety or purchases or whatever other forms is doomed from the beginning. There is no panacea. More than that, our flaws define us, exquisitely, like a kaleidoscope of colors in a mosaic reflecting beauty to the world only because of the broken pieces that shape it. Those shards and blemishes of identity we would so quickly do away with are essential to character, as much as any of the virtues more commonly acclaimed. It takes courage to see that. And humility to move beyond acknowledgement to actually embrace it. Rather than striving to learn and grow and become, there is another path more helpful to the weary of soul, one elegant and inscrutable in its simplicity: be. Settle in to the very ground of your being. Becoming will take care of itself. Grant yourself permission to feel just as you feel, without judgment and without expectation. To feel sorrow without reason. Shame without pity. Anger without remorse. Uncertainty without answers. Delight without inhibition. To know spirit unconstrained, and to be you unchained.