Monday, May 5, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The love affair with “there and later” starts in preschool, which is mere preparation for kindergarten. Kindergarten prepares you for elementary school. Elementary school prepares you for middle school. Middle school prepares you for high school. High school prepares you for college. College prepares you for graduate school. Graduate school prepares you for a job. A job prepares you for retirement. Retirement prepares you for what \u2026 the end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally there! The grave. Does retirement prepare you for decline of health and ultimate death? What is death preparing you for, then? Seems like there might be an afterlife. Is the afterlife preparing you for something? To do it all over again? When do we step off of the wheel of preparation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I spent 50 years in preparation. For what? To get there? Young people don\u2019t understand, there is no \u201cthere.\u201d \u201cThere\u201d is nowhere to be. \u201cThere\u201d is nothing to do. \u201cThere\u201d is no culminating experience. It\u2019s all transitory, so it\u2019s all joyful, peaceful, and OK now. Many people can\u2019t live comfortably with this strange, seemingly naive way to live – perpetual ongoingness. But it\u2019s true, the further you go, the further there is to go. \u201cHere\u201d is where it\u2019s at. \u201cNow\u201d is when it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was always amazed at how much better I could get at practicing music and never \u201cget there.\u201d That\u2019s life. It\u2019s mercifully ongoing. But that tortures some, not being able to \u201cget there.\u201d Is that cruel, to dangle the carrot like that? No – it\u2019s relieving that I cannot attain. I am unlimited. I\u2019ll never be able to reach, so I might as well give up attainment and experience the joy of practice. Get snug and cozy, and you\u2019ll love living in joyful perpetuity. It takes practice to enjoy here and now. There is no \u201cthere\u201d or \u201clater\u201d to enjoy. We must overcome this illusion of “getting there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday, May 5, 2025 The love affair with “there and later” starts in preschool, which is mere preparation for kindergarten. Kindergarten prepares you for elementary school. Elementary school prepares you for middle school. Middle school prepares you for high school. High school prepares you for college. College prepares you for graduate school. Graduate school prepares […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morning-motivation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4717,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions\/4717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}