Life's Ups And Downs

A perfect life does not exist. There are times when everything feels perfect and times when they don't. This is how it is supposed to be. Ying and yang / balance, it's essential for life. When we fully appreciate this, we can work through challenges with a clear head, until they pass. 

I had a bad day yesterday, multiple "challenges" presented themselves. At the same time, a few wins were there too. Unfortunately, I felt the challenges more. Winning is easy to accept and celebrate, in fact it's fun. Challenges are hard to accept and certainly not celebrate. Challenges come in many forms; other people can test our patience, situations turn out not in our favor, goals are more challenging than originally thought, technology fails on us and sometimes plain old bad luck, to name a few. 

While our dilemma's are trivial compared to other people's in the world, they're ours and it feels good to vent about them to a friend. Today is a new day and yesterday's "challenges" came and went. I really like the Buddhist mentality, as it is always spot on. It reminded me to return to home base, where everything is neutral. I used to think home base was where I was happy, I realized this is not the case. The Buddha says, happiness and perfections come in waves, along with challenges and frustrations. Neutral is where it's at, the natural mind. 

The reality is, our problems are trivial compared to people in impoverished countries. They worry how to feed themselves, about not having running water or a bed to sleep in. They walk miles to get to their nearest water well. Young women in parts of Africa and east Asia are afraid to go to school, for fear rebels will come and kidnap them, to be raped and used as maids. These are real problems. Even in our own country, there are people who work full-time, 40 hours a week, making minimum wage, that does not allow them to make a living. 

We have to keep it in perspective. Being grateful for what we have is essential. Celebrate the wins and roll with the punches. Let them come, let them go, no matter how frustrating they are. Move back to home base, to a natural, neutral state of mind. .

-Fabiola Conrado. #buddhism #peace #naturalmind