What if nothing has gone wrong?

We humans seem to be designed with a natural drive to improve things, including ourselves. This can be a good trait, but it can also lead to a persistent state of dissatisfaction.

So often our drive for improvement grows out of a stance that says that what already exists is insufficient. Our drive for "better" is grounded in a rejection of what is as "not good enough." This stance of rejection of what is cuts us off from our willingness to fully embrace the present moment. Yet happiness, fulfillment, joy, these are all experiences, and experiences can only be had within the present.

We trade the available possibility of real happiness for the hope of future happiness that has been earned. We think we can do something to someday cause us to deserve the happiness and fulfillment we long for. So the happiness and fulfillment always remain ideas about the future, and never become experiences in the present.

We can apply this to ourselves and to our world.

There is too much violence in the world. Our tempers are too quick to flash and consuming when they do.

There is too much poverty and physical deprivation in the world. We have to work a job we hate just to get by, or we're financially struggling, or we're guilty because we don't struggle and others do.

There is political corruption, military aggression, judicial misconduct, corporate dominance to the point of verging on fascism, child abuse, nuclear threat, and on and on and on. So much could use improving in this world. And then there are our personal faults that don't rise to the same level of affecting many others, but let's not pretend our bad habits don't affect us and those we love as much or more than any of these large scale issues do.

What's a person to do? No one ones to settle comfortably into acceptance of all this imperfection, do we? Don't we have an obligation to strive for a better world? To try to be a better person ourselves?

What If?

But what if we could improve the world and ourselves within the world without having to reject anything?

What if we could reach a place of being able to relate to this world as perfect in its imperfection?

What if we could accept that it never fully gets done, that there will always be something left to improve, and that that is a part of the perfection of how reality fits with our natural urge to improve things?

Who We Naturally are

We want to see that we have an effect.

The baby pushes the toy off the table.

The teenager either wins awards or gets into trouble.

The young person entering the world of work tries to find their place in which they can see they do something that matters, or else they become despondent and prone to self-destructive past-times.

We are designed to desire to see how we affect our environment.

If we can affect it in a good way, that's best. That makes us feel good about ourselves. It makes us feel like we deserve to have good things happen to us, to be loved, to be appreciated by "the village."

But if we can't get that positive feedback, then we'll settle for negative feedback. We'll take having a measurable negative impact on the world if that's all we can ever seem to reliably succeed in producing.

What to Do About Ourselves

So I hope you can see at this point that we are designed for this natural desire to either improve or destroy, but to one way or the other make a difference. We want our existence to matter to others, one way or the other.

What if there is nothing wrong with that?

What if the entire universe has shaped itself around this natural desire by giving us an endless variety of things that could really use some improving?

If everything really is working out just as it is meant to, and if your journey of improving self and world will never end no matter what you do, then don't you think you might as well go ahead and start experiencing happiness and fulfillment now?

Don't you think that maybe you could focus yourself on learning how to be satisfied swimming within the ever shifting currents of an endless ocean of possibilities?

Can you trust the benevolence of that ocean?

Can you trust your competence to stay afloat in it?

This is an invitation to peace in action that is born out of a loving relationship with stillness. When you can accept that you are perfect here now, in this still moment, without having changed anything about yourself or your world, only then can you accept that whatever you do next will have a perfect effect.

You are what this world needs most, but only when you are moving from that level of truth, not from this compulsive feeling of dissatisfaction, blame, shame and rejection.

Stop your war against what is, against yourself and your world. Embrace what is while allowing what it changes into to also be considered lovable.

Love this world the way that which created the world loves its creation, loves itself. And in doing so you will find the power and the peace that you have been looking for.

(Photo source: Pixabay)

Other articles of mine you might enjoy:
Curious Contradictions Contest - 10 SBD in prizes
In Praise of Magic
Offering the Gift The World Needs to Receive
What are you contributing to this moment?
Spiritual Road Trip and Leaving Room for the Miracles

Resteems always appreciated!