pressure

[roger]

There was something about my waiter tonight at a restaurant I frequent. He made a facial expression that seemed to reveal a subtle shame, and he did that the previous time he was my waiter also.

 

On my way home, something came to me very strongly, a intuition about what his issue might be.

 

He's young, maybe 25 or so, and the thing is, the kind of pressure a person that age can feel to succeed in life, in relationships, in work, and in many other ways, is absolutely enormous.

 

I think we ALL feel that pressure to some extent. Think about it. The people at this website may feel great pressure to succeed spiritually, to find enlightenment, or in any number of other ways the typical person may or may not feel.

 

You can't fully get around it. If you're human, you feel a kind of pressure. You want to "be somebody", to make something of yourself, to "get it right".

 

To an extent, it's unavoidable.

 

BUT, we can cut ourselves a lot of slack, we can go easy on ourselves. We can know that, if we "fail", or if our lives don't turn out the way we wanted them to, that's OKAY.

 

I'm in a place in my life where I want to do that- to not place such a strong demand on myself to succeed, to know that it's okay if I don't always get it right, to just enjoy my life without being so obsessed with my life and my path.

 

In fact, it's ironic, but I feel that cultivating that kind of attitude IS a success in itself. In other words, not being so concerned with succeeding, is succeeding.