Daodejing, Verse 72

Daodejing - Other Voices

Having it good.
I didn’t appreciate all the things I had before. The Friends, that fame, the fortune of being an artist, even my own art style. I don’t think up until this week have I appreciated anything very well in my life. I have been very fortunate in my time, and I am only now realizing what that means.

Before I always felt like a failure because nothing I had looked like this impossible vision of what success should look like (Big House, Big Money, Big Name, etc.). I was always comparing my self to others, and my situation to other “Better” situations. I wanted what others had, even though what they had was not necessarily for me.

It is funny because I have had success all along, I had contentment all along, I had happiness all along, but I was to selfish, and greedy to see it. Nothing was good enough because it didn’t look like I thought it should. What I was told it should be.

I believed in this crazy hyped up illusion that was feed to me by TV, the Internet, the Movies, My Mother, and the Illusion that others but up when they want to be looked upon as successful, rich, and/or famous. I admired those that had the career I wanted, and was jealous of them. I envied others that could what they did so well. Seeing them often filled me with regret for the direction my life went, and the decisions I made, and because what I did didn’t look like theirs.

Seeing this illusion but forth by everything and everyone around me would make me loath myself, and see no value in what I had in my hands. What I had in my soul. I would then treat my prosperity, and my life like trash. I would crawl into my self, and hide; wallowing in my inferiority as an artist, and as a person. I would just let things “Go” including my health. I have done this with my fame, my skill, my career, and my life numerous times.

When all the time I had a fortune of prosperity, skill, and luck; all I had to do was see it, and embrace it for what it was… Mine…

I have it good! I am successful! And I am damn Lucky! All I have to do is remember that I have greatness in me, and that I am great, and I don’t need what those illusions of fame, fortune, and success keep promising. I just need to do what I love to do, and find the joy in that alone. Everything else that I am meant to have will follow.

Life is good *Grin*

“The Master acts on what he feels and not what he sees. He shuns the latter, and prefers to seek the former.”
-- The Tao Te Ching
~ from Stickypaws, author Ryngs D. Ratt, original post date: 5/23/10 ~

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.