Enjoying Those Dreadful Moments

I've been doing a ton of reflection on the concept of enjoying my life.

Of course it's easy and expected that we will enjoy our lives when times are good and things are going smoothly. But what I mean is to enjoy our lives when times are tough and things are going terribly. Like those times of ultimate stress, when your belly feels like someone's wringing it out like a sponge, and the bags under your eyes reach your chin.

I've had that kind of stress for the last month and a week. I don't want to state the particulars of it, but this is true. It came to a terrible, dreadful head just today. I was up against a deadline vis-a-vis this whole situation, after the month and a week's build up, and the deadline could not be postponed. It was then, it had to be then. It was do or die.

All through the morning, there was one thing on my mind, the terrible dreadfulness of it all. And at times, the thought of how great I'd feel when it was over, and how much greater I'd feel, say, two months from now when there is more or less a resolution, and the old is left behind and the new has come. That was my feeling through the morning.

Then as the morning advanced on, I knew it was T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Then -- it was an inexorable moment -- the do or die moment came and my stomach was doing such contortions, my eyes were hazy, and if it had been possible with our present human structure to spontaneously combust, I surely would have done so!

In those moments, before the 10, 9, 8 .... just before that ... I was thinking, "Enjoy this feeling." My mental talk was going like this, "This feeling is as intense and rare as any feeling can be. You cannot fake this feeling, even if you mentally put yourself in this predicament. Because it would be simply a mental thing and not a thing of actuality, involving real people and real life consequences. You can fool yourself, but you can't fool yourself that well! So ... to the extent that you can, zero in on this and ... enjoy it."

The truth is I never really talked myself into an actual experience of enjoyment. Because that thought keeps slipping away in the struggles and exigencies of the moment. But it is a heck of a philosophy and seems to be true to me as a way to experience the conditions of life. If you can manage it!

To wish away the experiences of life is to wish away our lives. And that is a very mentally self destructive attitude.