Perspectives#1: Life gets in the Way

Life can get in the way and throw curveballs, but we should take breaks like we did in school. As adults, we struggle to find time for ourselves and play. Play becomes a chore and is added to our never-ending to-do lists. We need to remember the joy of play and not let life control us. Our thoughts create our reality, and we should take time to appreciate the small things and not worry about material possessions. This is Nicole Heyman-Sherman with Perspective. Life gets in the way, boy does it ever, sometimes more than others. Just when you think you have it all figured out, the universe loves to throw you a curve ball, or maybe three. Why? Because as we've been told, there's a lesson in everything that happens in our lives. But when do we get a reprieve from all these lessons? How about a break, like when we were in school, in the world of academia? There were holiday breaks, spring breaks, for crying out loud. A week, or sometimes a little more, it just depended on when the holidays fell. Whether it was a week, or maybe ten days, but we always got those breaks. Those times away from learning, sitting endlessly in the classroom, listening to someone drone on and on about English, or history, or science, memorizing dates, or conjugating verbs in English or another language. During that time, we weren't obligated to be up and out early in the morning, dressed and ready to face another day with our peers, sitting in a classroom. Depending on the breaks, like mid-winter or springtime, some even got to go on a vacation. Somewhere other than home. Why is it that we can't have that with all the lessons we're given once we leave the world of academia, and have to operate in the larger earth classroom? Why does life get in the way, and we just can't do that anymore? Take a break from the lessons. I'm not saying people don't go on vacations, believe me, once they get to adulthood and free from the academia era of their lives. Clearly that's not the case. I'm not talking about a physical vacation here, though. The one being part of what I'm talking about, and what I'm referring to, would be a nice addition. That's for certain. I'm referring more to a break, a relaxing, stress-free, no worries, life on autopilot break. A regroup, if you will, downtime. Those kinds of breaks that bring to mind images of sleeping in, sitting outside in the morning, maybe with some coffee, and just watching the sky, or the birds, enjoying the sun, and having a moment of peace, hanging in a hammock on a warm summer day, and napping because you can, and you just want to be. Just be for a while. It seems as we age, those moments can become fleeting, and even when we have them, life does somehow interrupt and get in the way, no matter how hard we try it not to. Leave that cell phone somewhere, turn it off, or do not disturb. We all know life and all its ongoing lessons, those endless lessons, will be waiting for us. That voicemail, that email, that text, it's always something. Very few of us have those carefree days, like we did in childhood. No cares, no worries, just time to play and time to be. Why is that? And when did that happen, exactly? At what point in our lives do things change, and why? Well, we adults can answer some of that. We grow up, get jobs, add responsibilities, some of us become parents, too. We need transportation, a place to live, electricity, utilities, and food. And the earth classroom begins where the academia one leaves behind. For some, this happens in their late teens, and for others, late 20s, and some even later. There's no set age here, which I think makes it hard to define what actually happens and how exactly it does, but it always does. Some call it adulting, others call it growing up, but whatever you call this transition, it's when life gets in the way, when you have to make time, if you can, to try and just be. You have to fight to get a few minutes to read, to draw, to just sit, to play. When does play become something childish? When does it mean making time or having to schedule moments for yourself to do a little self-care? When that adult to-do list becomes so long and involved that it takes over your whole life, personal or work-related. Adults seem to spend so much time chasing the end of that list, to be able to cross it off, all off, every item and say, all done. Which when that really happens, give it five minutes, maybe even less, hopefully more than five minutes. Before you know it, there's another list that has started. Let's take laundry for example, that thing that never entirely goes away. It's a perfect example of what I mean. You can wash every article of clothing you own, except the ones you're wearing. And when the day is done, they become the first items that need to be washed. It's the never-ending cycle. So too is the to-do list. We all chase as adults. If we're not careful, we easily become overwhelmed by all of it. The irony is, our playtime as adults actually gets added to that to-do list. Gone is that spontaneity of play. We turn it into a task we need to complete. How is that play? Part of play is supposed to be just that play, not a chore, not a task to be completed. That makes it work. It's a chore, and it sucks the fun right out of it. It becomes part of that life that seems to get in the way. Where's the fun in that? There isn't any. Well, maybe a moment or three while you're engaged in it, and you forget all about that list of things on the endless to-do list. But it's not truly play. Not that childlike play we all had when we were young, that creative spark of imagination When you look at that big box, like a refrigerator-sized one, and it becomes a car, a playhouse, part of a castle, fun play. Somewhere along the line as we grew up, we forgot about that. Those moments are now scheduled hours, squeezed into an already overbooked day. It is until we have moments where we interact and play with a small child that we may realize just how far removed we've become. Some actually lose this ability to even relate, to get themselves to the level to allow themselves to play at all anymore with a child. We've all seen both sides of this. The big bad biker dude who takes a play phone from a small child, who hands it to him, telling him it's for you. You see that big bad burly guy, but you see the little boy inside when he puts the phone to his ear and has a conversation with whomever he is pretending is on the other end. The big guy believes he's doing this act for the child, but he's actually doing it for himself too. He's playing and his inner child is showing. It's spontaneous and unplanned, unrehearsed, and just plain having fun. On the flip side of that, there are those who are unable or unwilling to get down on a child's level. They've forgotten all about pretending, imagination, and play. They don't even understand how to communicate with a child on a child's level anymore. These are those adults who burst the Santa or Easter Bunny bubbles for the kids, telling them that they're not real. They even can't even talk to the child at all because they just don't anymore. They've closed off from that part of themselves completely. These people we should all have some pity or some sadness for. Their adult lives have gotten so far in the way that they've lost that connection to an aspect of themselves, of their lives, the early part that is the foundation of who they really are today. It's that early childlike aspect that makes us who we are that influences us on some level every day. Granted, not all of us had a great childhood. No one's childhood was perfect and we have lessons that we had to learn then too, believe me. But life doesn't get in the way like it does once you get older. When you are expected to figure out what you want to do and what you want to be when you grow up and then go do it. The days of pretending play are over. But should they be? Aren't we supposed to fake it until we make it? Isn't the premise of creative visualization and the law of attraction to act as if it is already here to pretend? But because the mind doesn't know the difference between daydreaming and reality, between imagination and what is real. Science now backs this premise that our thoughts create our reality. Science tells us that an object is affected by the viewer, that no two people see something exactly the same. It's all perspective. What's interesting is the ancient philosophies told us as much the same. We have the ability to control our own thoughts and change our reality and science now tells us this is so. Yet in mass we continue to chase that to-do list and allow life to play director instead of us doing it. We're hamsters in a wheel and that wheel is life. That life gets in the way, stops us from being who we are meant to be. Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of great lessons and reasons why we have to experience every stage of our life. It's part of the process of life, part of why we are here to begin with and in the first place. It becomes an issue when life gets so far in the way we've forgotten to play, to identify with our inner child to just be. Be in the moment, truly enjoy it, no plans, no to-do's or should be's, should be doing's. When was the last time you sat and looked at the clouds in the sky? That one looks like a bear or that one a bird, a rabbit, an angel. See how the sunlight plays in the clouds. Watch the birds or actually sit under the stars and just gaze upward in awe of the vastness of space and realize how small we really truly are. You're a single human on the earth. That moment when you're sitting under the stars will forever put things in perspective. What truly matters isn't getting all those things done on that to-do list or chasing after that material dream, the bigger car, the bigger house. Who cares? What car your neighbor drives, your boss or your friend drives, who cares? So what if your house is the smallest on the block? Do me a favor, look up at the night sky and see all the stars. Look at the moon for a moment and realize it doesn't actually matter. Aren't our bodies just made up of the dust from all those stars anyway? Thank you for joining me on this perspective. I wish you peace, light, love. Namaste.