What We All Want: Less friction from those around us and ourselves

     What is today going to bring you? A hurried morning? A harried start to the day's events, kids to school, rushed breakfast, trip to the gas station even though it will make you late to work, make the boss say that thing you don't want to hear?  All these things, the cares of the world biting at our heels before we even have a chance to control it our selves lead to a friction, a heating up of our lives that causes stress.  And that stress, we all wish we could do without!  Watch the news? More bad than good mostly.  Stock market? Up and down as usual, but do we go up and down with it?  That's the rub.  We don't have to.
     But there is a tugging an invisible part of us that want us to throw all of these types of things to the wind and let it carry those cares away for us.  We search for the pleasures of this life while within the trappings of framework we all put ourselves into.  Some of us are planners and so make our lives what we want, some of us are thrust into life's more umpleasant trappings because of poverty, poor health, surroundings and place of birth.  But all of us no matter what place we are in want something better. Joy of living, peace of mind, happiness with relatives (hard to find) accomplishment and the knowledge that our lives are not wasted.
     The cares of this world, will pull us all on a downward spiral and choke out the simple pleasures we seek.
The old adage, "stop and smell the roses" is  beckoning us to slow down and take measure of our lives.  Observe the wonders of the fields and pastures of nature and see the fabulous thousands of flowers arrayed and more beautiful  than King Soloman's robes.  Look at the majestic panorama of nature in all of it's diversity, gaze at the untold number of stars, and galaxies above us.  We can for moments of our life do this.  But it is hard. We live daily constained by a world that was created and formed by those who lived before us!  Passed down to us is a life we try and fit into.  But we were supposed to have life and have it more abundantly.  The words of Jesus.  Abundant means overflow.  MORE than what we have now.  MORE in our future, and eternity that we have when we live a life that is filled with good things instead of all the things that grab us by the throat and choke us.  A little at a time.  I marvel at those I have seen at the end of their life and yet there is still a smile and an energy to them that amazes me.   How did they accomplish this?  Was it generational? The simplicity of yesterday? I think some of it is. Most of it I think comes from within that person who has been transfomed over time and learned something different.  But that is what Jesus wanted all along.  He spoke to so many of our life's failings and those who chose to follow, found a joy in the Spirit of Christ they received in themselves and passed to others along the way.  I follow but still have not mastered the art of letting those cares not get to me, though I'm much better at it after 30 years of trusting God.
     I may not achieve the abundance I imagined in my youth  and time seems shorter  and more conracted than I realized it would be at this stage in my life, but I am less stessed by the things that occurr and the  random events that happen to throw me off course from time to time and that's good.
         I still am ever curious about the events of our time and find my self a news junkie wanting to sort out the happenings of the world that comes into view by the ever present media available to me.  Most of this though is a bit wrenching to take in.
    So I focus on the things that bring small bits of joy throughout the day, weeks and months of my life, and enjoy my children and live vicariously through them seeing their progress in life, remembering mine when I was that age.....................