Too much choice

 The confluence of 3 books:

The Body Keeps the score, Bad Therapy and Scattered Minds

And it reminds me that we can often be wrong

That we live in a world with too much noise, where everyone has a loudspeaker.

But also, a world where we have too much time and too many choices.

It is said that Indian and Buddhist meditative practices arose because they had the free time to just sit and breathe; and when we rested, we found out that our mind is constantly in a state of flux.

In my journey of parenting, I can see now that the abundance of time means that I am continually assessing how to allocate time, how to be mindful and be present.

But I look back at my one parent who was constantly there, and I can see that she too failed me. And even though she failed me, I have turned out quite ok, I am indebted to both of them and quite appreciative of my path.

And hence, it seems to me that there is no magic path.

Its just a constant tug between selfish and selfless (which is indeed selfish), between good and bad (habits, diet, lifestyle, thoughts, behaviour).

And eventually its just about getting through life without, hopefully, any serious disasters.

Our current lives are filled with so many choices, that it seems to me a root cause for a lot of mental ills in the world. The doomscrolling, and the ability to whine and worry because of a surfeit of time and resources. 

If you are reading this, the odds are you can overeat, oversleep, overexercise, overlounge, overdoomscroll without any immediate repercussions. 

But as soon as you glance at another who is too busy or too worried about money, the odds are that the 'depression' of theirs stems from something else entirely. 

We now live amongst a populace of whiners and wasters (me too).  

And again, my kids teach me. Today, K was dancing and walking saying " I daaat a taaaain!!!" (I got a coin). Thats mindfulness.