Always Crashing in the Same Car

If daily life is a school wherein we learn how best to navigate daily life, there's something suspect about the whole setup, beyond its absurdly self-justifying nature. At least, for me there is. Why do I have to relearn the same lessons every day? When can I write the final exam and move on to the next grade? Is it like this for you too?

It often feels like I'm making progress on the big question of how one should live one's life. In, fact over the course of a day, I think I probably am. But then the next day, the very same truths will pop up again in response to new stumbling blocks, and I'll think, "Oh yeah, right!"

I guess it's a positive thing that the answers I keep bumping into are at least consistent. If they kept changing and contradicting themselves, it wouldn't be even logically possible to make any headway. So I shouldn't complain.

But why can't I just remember them, once learned, and go around directly applying them? Life would get easier and easier and I would make the world a better and better place for others. And then those others could pass the lessons on to later generations, who would be immediately ready to learn more advanced ones, and humans would fulfill their tremendous potential, and God would have to look at our species and write, "Nice job. A+" on our cosmic report card. Instead, individual life is a Groundhog Day of spiritual déja vu, as the world slowly destroys itself. Seems unfair.

I even think I may have written a blog post about this very phenomenon before.

Anyway, here are some of the simple truths I'm constantly forgetting and then remembering again. What are some of yours?

1. No one is an enemy unless you make them one.
2. Especially not yourself.
3. Stop trying so hard.
4. It's not necessary or even a good idea to believe your own thoughts.
5. The past and the future are examples of thoughts.
6. Slow down.
7. The right time to make up your mind about someone is never.
8. Judging that something is beautiful is not the same as seeing beauty.
9. Sunshine and the smell of grass will answer all important questions.
10. Life is but a dream.