Life hands us ironies by the dozen.
Let me humor you with this one; why is breathing not in our own hands to function or control? It is essential to our being, a crucial activity to us remaining alive but usually we're not aware of our breathing.
Breathing is a continuous spontaneous act.
We are all breathing right this second. It is not an option. The trick is in the attitude. Especially at those times that confuse us the most; times that disturb our thoughts and affect our moods. There is the occasional overload from work and pressure from everywhere else. There is always a reason or two to feel stressed.
There’s a tremendous weight on our shoulders. We sense heaviness – in our movement and inside us. Our thoughts are jaded and nothing is turning out as we’d hoped. Frustrations add to our disappointments. Constant flow of problems leaves us agitated. We can read failure between every line. We notice the shadows and miss the streak of light. We grow cynical and weary. We have energy levels approaching zero, and we are exhausted, both mentally and physically. We become drained by the entirety of it all. We don’t see any signs of clouds with silver linings.
We’re barely able to let out a sigh.
So we breathe. We take a breath. That’s all we have to do at that moment. Breathe in and breathe out. We cannot succumb to quitting. No matter how appealing the idea of giving up seems. The urge to let go is hard to resist. Sometimes we strongly feel we can’t take it anymore. The outcome is bleak either way.
That’s precisely why we need to keep breathing, and if only to make it through. We fell down the first time we tried to walk. We almost drowned the first time we tried to swim. We missed the ball the very first time we swung a bat. We try, and try again. We find the will to hang on. Every once in a while we trip, stumble and fall. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Why do we let it hold us back? We can be proud we fell, as long as we get up again. We get up every time we fall. We can make our own way. No one said it was easy. In fact it gets harder every day. And we don’t have to fight. Fighting implies a lot of strength, but we may not have the energy in us right then.
We just breathe.
We clear our heads, and get perspective. You see, the trick is to keep breathing.
