Before enlightenment, Chop wood
Carry water.
After enlightenment, Chop wood
Carry water. 

-Zen saying

I have getting this one over the last few weeks. We struggle and struggle, trying desperately get to that greener grass over there.  We try and find that winning thing, that great job or perfect girlfriend, or big recognition. And in the struggle for that we miss what is right there. We miss the right here. We miss the now. 

I think about how much of my life is spent planning for and stressing out about the future, and I have actively been trying to break myself of that habit.  

I’ve brought it to my career as a grip. I stopped, finally, looking for the way out. I stopped thinking about gripping as the “thing I am doing for now”  and moved my conversation to one of mastery of something I love to do. I really get to work with the best people, I get paid well and have plenty of free time and I am pretty damn good at it. I don’t see what there is to get to. 

I’ve had a lot of success bringing “this nothing to get” thing into the area of dating and being single. It certainly has taken the pressure off the women who I get to go out with. I’m not trying to get into their pants, or find a girlfriend, or fit them into some kind of perfect girl script or even to chase a date. Instead, I have started just being right there with them when I am right there. There’s nothing to do.  It becomes very simple and obvious what is next to do, if anything at all. It’s peaceful. 

I have been trying to take it to all my endeavors and all my relationships. For me the pitfalls have been inaction and then the second guessing and criticizing of my context as unproductive. Obviously, this too gets me nowhere. 

I have been trusting the path to make itself known as I walk it.  I have been trusting the wisdom of the people around me to lead me where I need to go. I have been giving myself to life for no good reason, other than for the sheer joy of it. 

Obviously, 2009 has been pretty amazing thus far. And I keep thinking of this song. It’s a metaphor about how to live life, you know?

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.