Life is not all peaches and cream. It gets really rough sometimes. Life can get pretty rough, or monotonous, or tiresome, or worrisome, but that’s why they call it the art of living.
Life is not a recipe of good things to be had and bad things to be avoided. There is nothing in particular that you should be doing because you get to decide what it is that you wish to be doing. Every decision you make to do something, is an automatic decision not to do something else. If you are playing the piano, you are not writing, or knitting, or napping, or gardening. Life offers you a series of choices and sure we like some much better than others, but in the end everything in its totality is what we have to embrace.
That’s what is going to make us happy. That is what will give our lives great meaning.
You should stop chasing rainbows and unicorns. You should let go and let the rainbows and unicorns come to you. Or the snakes, the mosquitoes, the bumble bees, or the flu.
There is nothing that you need to be doing but you certainly need to take care of your being. You are you no matter where you find yourself or if you’re up or you’re down. Being is the secret recipe for joy. Learning to let go and being able to accept who you are for who you are and what you desire will give you energy and clarity of purpose.
Life is not peaches and cream and no one said it would be. Wherever you find yourself, take comfort in the fact that it is not permanent. If you find yourself in pure joy, don’t get distracted, because it will only last for a little while. The art of living requires us to stretch the things we love, and to remember that all things can be endured and will eventually pass.
You don’t have to like certain things, but you have to go through them. That is what adulthood is all about. This is how you are going to leave your childish ways, and grow more purposeful. Going through things and accepting things or being kind to yourself when you don’t have your best effort will give your innocence a chance to shine.
We are all innocent. We never stop being children. I remember when I was little I loved comic books, but because we were poor immigrants, I never had the money to read them. Now, the little child that still lives happily inside of me, enjoys reading and buying them weekly.
Life is not all peaches and cream, but sweet tastes better when it is paired up with bitter. You can’t desire the bitter. You can’t go looking for it, but going through it, not only makes us stronger, better, more beautiful, and infinitely more resilient.
I judge people who talk of Heaven by how much they enjoy living today. If you don’t like being human. If you don’t embrace the art of living, you are simply looking to Heaven as an escape, and if you ever got there, you’d be uncomfortable, sit in a corner, and pout.
Life is not all peaches and cream.
Take your lumps. Smile and carry on.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Alexander Mils via unsplash.com
