Only the basics are truly important.
Please reflect and share. How does this play out for you?
We can get ourselves worked up about a variety of things like politics, sports, workplace drama, disagreements with loved ones, or financial strain. These issues may feel all-consuming to us and our related stress affects our quality of life. Existence can seem soured when we’re preoccupied with these problems.
Certainly our emotions around issues set off biochemical reactions inside us. This causes our reaction style to be habitual. We become addicted to our emotions and seek to repeat the thought and behavioral patterns generating them, leading us to feel urgency around our problems.
Longer term, these types of issues for the post part are unlikely to permanently and irrevocably affect us. If in the present moment we have some or most of our basic needs covered—food and clean water, shelter, physical safety, and bodily health and mental function—we are okay and likely even good. Life can be enjoyable with just our basic needs met.
Today’s message invites me to appreciate the heck out of being basically okay. I have so much more than the basics—a choice of healthy food and drink, pleasant and comfortable surroundings, safety in and out of my home, a fairly healthy and functional mind and body. When I focus on the riches I do have in the present moment, other perceived problems recede in my awareness.
How about you? Do you appreciate the basics?