To be alive

“Because we live

we have desires and hopes.

Because we have desires and hopes

we have fears of failing

to achieve them in the future

and memories of having failed

to achieve them

in the past.

How can we cope with the reality

that our desires and dreams

always extend

beyond our abilities

to attain them?

No amount of effort works satisfactorily;

no direct approach to the problem succeeds.

We hit the dead end of impossibility.

What is there to do?

The remarkable key

is to give up

on trying to solve

the dilemma altogether.

In other words,

we recognize the discrepancy

between what we want

and who we are (what we can achieve)

and accept it.

We recognize the feelings

of anxiety and inadequacy

that come with living,

and accept them.

There is no need to fight,

no need to wish life

would be otherwise

than it is.

We are just fine as we are.

Once (not really once,

but over and over again)

we recognize that naturalness

of this reality of discrepancy

we can go about directing our attention and efforts

toward doing what is possible.

We can begin to live

realistically and constructively

within the limits and potentials

that life offers us.

There has been no problem all along,

except for the one we created in our minds.

There is only

a naturally expansive set of desires,

a naturally limited set of abilities

to achieve them,

and a pressure

to achieve all of them.

To be alive

is to need,

to succeed and

to fail.

To be sometimes anxious

and sometimes confident.

Sometimes regretful

and sometimes satisfied.

Life is just fine like that.”

David K. Reynolds, founder of Constructive Living

Image: Pink Sherbet Photography