It’s easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of every day life, we have mountains of work to plod through, family obligations, chores and errands, bills to pay, taxes to file and the list goes on and on and on. What happened? How did our lives get so darned complicated? I thought we were promised a new era of serenity and synergy with today’s techno doodads like laptops, GPS, on line banking, text messaging, email, twitter, social media (to manage friends?) and smartphones with “apps” for everything, wasn’t life supposed to be easier? Yet it’s anything but, we’ve somehow managed to devise thousands of ways to make our lives as complicated as possible.
It wasn’t always that way, think about it. When we were young we saw the world in a very uncomplicated way. We knew what we needed, we asked for it. We liked nice people, and didn’t like the meanies. We slept when we were tired, we ate what we wanted, and stopped eating when full.
As we’ve grown up we’ve learned to eat and drink to console ourselves, rather than addressing the issues that are troubling us. We overwork to avoid close relationships, rather than spending quality time building strong bonds with loved ones. We keep grudges, play games, gossip, spend more money than we make, we want things we don’t need, we say things we don’t mean, to put it simply we’ve moved too far from our basic human needs. We have filled our lives with clutter and distraction.
When we seek downtime, we often choose activities such as camping, and weekend getaways to the cottage. We leave all the so called modern conveniences and get by just fine. Obviously you sometimes feel the withdrawl effects of going cold turkey from all our ‘technogimics’, but the point is you don’t die. Quite the opposite, you begin to live. We need to make our day to day lives more like our vacation lives.
I recently read the average person keeps their cell phone within 6 feet of their body every hour of the day and every day of the week. Is that really necessary? I know some people get upset when they can’t instantly reach you, but that’s not your problem it’s their’s. One of the things I like most about Martial Arts is when I’m on the mat training and teaching for several hours there’s no familiar cell phone “pongs” that urge me to check my text, or email, I’m completely free from all those distractions. Living in moment and interacting with real people right in front of me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty as everyone for getting caught up in all the intense corporate marketing telling us we need the newest and greatest gadget they are currently offering. Heck I’m using my laptop to write this note on the world’s largest social media site right now! I’m just making a small recommendation to find your own little oasis, away from all the clutter and distraction we are surrounded by. Martial arts has been my day to day “oasis ” what’s yours?