To Be

I was staring out my window one day and I began reflecting on how nice it must be to just BE.  

What am I talking about? 

I was imagining what it must be like to just be a tree,

or a cloud,

or a bird,

or even a rock.

To just do exactly what you are supposed to do.

To be pre-programmed to exist every day without really thinking about why, or how, or whether you should be doing something or not, and certainly not thinking about whether you are doing it right or good or great. 

How nice would that be? 

Just to be.

Just to exist

without all of the thoughts, the doubts, the fears, the insecurities.

To exist without thinking about the challenges before they happen and only responding to what does happen.

Wouldn’t that be so peaceful?

Doesn’t it just sound glorious? 

 Or would it be? 

For without the thoughts, fears, doubts, and insecurities, we might not know the joys, love, and happiness we can experience in life.

And without the challenges we would not prepare, push, grow, and evolve ourselves to be better so we can overcome those challenges in the future.

Without recognizing our thoughts, we may never realize we are even beings capable of having them or changing them at all.  

Whether it is good or bad really doesn’t matter at all because, as human beings, we are not given a choice.

Human beings are given the ability (gift or curse) to think critically and reflect on our beliefs, environment, and experiences.  

More than that, we are gifted with the opportunity to improve, to evolve our being and intentionally become more of what we are capable of becoming. Other beings are not conscious of their evolution – they will certainly evolve, but they will do so unknowingly as nature directs them to. Human beings, on the other hand, have the opportunity, the capability, and the gift of being able to evolve with intention. We have the gift of knowingly and purposefully improving and evolving our beings to become better versions of ourselves.  

The burden of such a gift is heavy – we cannot simply exist and wait for fate to take its course. Rather, we have the ability to act with intention, based upon our consciousness, and the ability to reflect and respond to the world around us in order to become better versions of ourselves.  

Should we choose to do so, of course. 

Are we making this choice today?

Many are and many others are not. 

What is a better version of ourselves?

Our evolution depends upon this definition of truly being better. I’m not sure we’ve even really defined it for ourselves – or considered this to be one of the core prerogatives of the human species.  

Are we working collectively to evolve our beings to become this better version?

Rarely. For the most part we work individually, and we lack a cohesive vision for how to evolve as humans with the purpose of being something greater and better than we are today.  

Are we truly making use of the unique gift we’ve been given?

So much potential exists to further use the gift we’ve been given to truly evolve our beings into something greater.  

Whether we want this burden or not – we have it.

Whether we choose to act or not... well, that is up to us.

Which makes me wonder further… 

Do the trees, clouds, birds, or rocks look at us and wonder when we will do our duty?

When will we evolve our species?

Do they grow frustrated with our lack of progress or our misuse of this unique gift and ability?

I wonder if they think how glorious our lives must be – to be able to truly think and choose our destiny.