Life is a lemon, ask for your money back
Ohhh, next year I will be 60
Do you remember, you've been told since childhood that being a grown-up is awesome. And maybe now that you're an adult, you're still waiting for the awesome part.... Well, it won't come!
As a child you believed that when you grow up, you can do whatever you want, but as you got older, you lost that confidence. Somewhere in the process of education you were tamed to a different kind of being.
After 50 things are weird!
In 20s you hope something will come. It was right after the corner, but it had never came.
Whatever life you have, in 30s you are always talking about truth. Whatever you occupy yourself with, you think that it leads somewhere, moves you toward some goal, that there is meaning in it.
When you rich 40s, you think you already know so many "truths", like it were toilet paper or something and you got a supply in the closet.
But what you learn, as you go beyond 50, is there ain't no truth. You clearly see that the meaning, once you cherished so preciously, was just a creation of your imagination where everything was real... but not true.
What will happen after 60 I have no clue. Let me check, I will tell you.
We're no longer certain what our purpose is
Your relatives and friends start disappearing from your life. Seeing the dear people vanishing from your world, you may feel somewhat alienated, what drove you in the 30s and 40s no longer drives you in 50s.
Yup, all there is is a bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that's your bullshit, so to speak...
Look at me, everything what I do is a folly in regard to myself and my world because nothing matters. Certain things in your life matter to you because you feel important. For me, not a single thing is important any longer, neither my acts nor the acts of anyone that I know. Really, it doesn't matter to me that nothing matters.
Do not believe a word I say. See it for yourself. You do not have to go anywhere. Just where you are right now, begin to spend time diving within yourself, watching your life.
Witness your own bullshit
You've earned your degree, you've a series of letters after your name. You've passed your exams, found a job, got married, had children, and then you became like a machine. You're fearful, anxious, frightened of life. You're tied to your job and to your responsibilities and this is a way in which you'll gradually wither away.
Take, for example, the whole thing about a career. Lots of you seem to be running around a successful career, you have caught the opportunity, became a boss, manager, senior analyst etc. but you're still waiting for that awesome part.
When I am surrounding with people, friends or acquaintances, all I see are busy, fatty, tired guys and old, chubby women talking about meetings, houses, backyards, barbecues, kid's universities etc... I don't say this is good or bad, I just state the obvious.
So finally, you're grown up - career, kids, houses, debt
You've stated drinking a bit, you're self-medicating. You've got your pills or booze or both, and you take massive doses of caffeine during each day.
You're working from home, these days from eight until four, watching the clock, wishing the morning away so you could go to lunch, wishing the afternoon away so you could close the laptop.
Never happy, always busy and tired and preparing for the next thing. Weekends are actually worse because that's when everything that didn't get done during the week had to be done. Cleaning, shopping, kid's stuff.
Money, power, prestige, high heels, sure whatever defines you, however you describe yourselves, think of yourself, project yourself... every feature, every trait, characteristic, feeling, belief, opinion, all of it, your self-ness... is all worthless. Just a costume. The false self which does not exist.
Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity - but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our 'biography, - our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards... It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are? -Sogyal Rinpoche
Sooner than later, you will see that the frightening nature of being old leaves you no alternative but to choose with whom you share your time.
Fortunately, every beginning has an end
Realize that your death is the only real friend that will be with you until the very end. Without the awareness of death buddy, you are just an ordinary, complaining man involved in daily activities without sense.
Die in your mind, while you're still alive, not unconsciously in a hospital bed.
If you make yourself deprived of illusions, imagination and hopes - if you're deprived of your interests, cares and expectations - your world would collapse, you would become empty, hopeless and alone. It is the right place to be, a great start in right direction of dying into mind.
The world without imagination is the death of "you", the death of everything it consisted of you as a person, the destruction of all bullshit collected through your ignorance and inexperience.
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