Karen Restivo
In Other Words....
Everyone loves a party!
Just the word itself instigates a feeling of excitement or fear determined by whether you are on the invitation list.
It can be a gathering of likeminded individuals sharing the desire to celebrate someone, a momentous occasion or in its simplest form, life itself.
Yes, I’m going there - life is a party, (Take a breath, grab a drink and relax, everything is going to be OK.)
I recently listened to a recording by the 20th Century philosopher Alan Watts.
He spoke about our interconnectedness and our inability to separate ourselves from life.
He used the example of a photograph.
When a photograph is taken of us, we are part of the whole picture.
If we’re standing in the presence of Niagara Falls, the picture reveals that we are one with Niagara Falls.
When we enter a restaurant to join a friend for lunch, visually we can’t separate our friend from the restaurant setting.
Everything within the picture itself is connected.
As my friend Jill would say, let’s sit with this thought for a minute...
If life is a party, in the beginning we really didn’t have much say what background setting (location) our parents or caregivers garnered for us.
As we grew, our connectedness was continually determined by those around us.
At some point, we experienced brief glimpses of our own self-awareness.
At an early age, our ego let everyone know we had an opinion about every setting we were situated in, and we had something to say about it.
Surprisingly some individuals turned their life (party) over to their ego (belief-driven self) reacting to anything and everything, kicking and screaming their dissatisfaction.
They failed to realize in their adult life that they had control of the location (setting) and the guest list (people) of their party (life) all along.
(Open your eyes, the roller coaster ride is over. Exit to your left.)
In other words, turn off the autopilot in your life (party), invite only those individuals that celebrate and encourage you (guest list) and find a place that you can truly call home (location).
If you’re not quite there yet (most of us aren’t), then keep reviewing your guest list and the location you’ve selected.
Now, stand back and look at the connectedness of your current self-portrait and setting.
You’re looking at your life review.
It may be time to upgrade your party’s guest list.
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com