Advice I Give Myself

You’re Spinning on a Ball of Dirt and Made of Collapsed Stars

“To get some distance from this, you first need to get some perspective. Walk outside on a clear night and just look up into the sky. You are sitting on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Though you can only see a few thousand stars, there are hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy alone. In fact, it is estimated that there are over a trillion stars in the Spiral Galaxy. And that galaxy would look like one star to us, if we could even see it. You’re just standing on one little ball of dirt and spinning around one of the stars. From that perspective, do you really care what people think about your clothes or your car? Do you really need to feel embarrassed if you forget someone’s name? How can you let these meaningless things cause pain? If you want out, if you want a decent life, you had better not devote your life to avoiding psychological pain. You had better not spend your life worrying about whether people like you or whether your car impresses people. What kind of life is that? It is a life of pain. You may not think that you feel pain that often, but you really do. To spend your life avoiding pain means it’s always right behind you.” Michael Singer

As I think about the coming summer I look forward to being outside on a warm night, laying down in the grass, on a rock, or in a hammock and gazing up. If you have never let yourself get lost in the stars, I think this is the year to start. It creates a sense of stillness and calm, can be relaxing, and puts you in tune with nature.  It encourages us to look at the world around us instead of being so focused on ourselves.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelias

“I think that we are like stars. Something happens to burst us open; but when we burst open and think we are dying; we’re actually turning into a supernova. And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before!” C. JoyBell