Keeping That Cute Little Monkey On Your Back

I've been in a deep crisis about my job lately and that's because I know it doesn't align with my desire or plan to have fulfilling Life Purpose.  How ridiculously typical for a spiritual seeker of my less-than-tender age!

There's no time in the linear trajectory I like to think of as the 'history of my life' that I wasn't looking for the next or better thing.  It's been a real source of dissatisfaction, if I'm honest. More than that, it's been a source of pain, and you might even say Suffering.

Oh, you too?

Only after beginning to work with this particular inquiry did I discover that the suffering is completely false.  Firstly, because I don't recall learning about a predetermined or neatly paved path which I have been commanded to follow.  What's more, there are zero accounts of Maps to the Universe having been handed out by the OB-Gyn who tended to my birth.  And if he was in the business of handing out life maps upon arrival, it's long since been lost.  There's no absolutely no GPS for This, and therefore, it's impossible to get lost.

So where did this idea of Sempre Further, Stronger, Faster, Better come from?  Why the dissatisfaction with my current state of affairs?

I can't find those ideas anywhere other than thought.  Ephemeral and ghost-like, these whispers of words have ruled my emotions for years, leaving an oil slick of black discontent in its wake.  Talk about a monkey on my back!

But.  (Notice how I have a "But" in every inquiry?!)

This restlessness is just one side of the thought equation.  It's beginning to dawn on me that everything thought of as negative has a balanced positive aspect if I just learn to look closely enough.

For instance...The very same thought pattern that creates ennui is responsible for propelling life forward, sometimes to more interesting developments.  Without it, I wouldn't have quit my dead end job to go to college full time, would not have married, bought a comfortable home, or enjoyed an increasing income over the years.

The lesson is that the monkey on the back, otherwise known as the ego, is a blessing as well as a curse.  It's not something to get rid of, that's for certain.  It's a function or pattern to see through, and to understand.  It's just one of the ways This uses to move and to play.

Monkeys can be playful, can't they?