Dear Friend,
Today I stopped by one of those mega-gas-food-whatever stores along the highway. My family and I picked up some “healthy” food and expanded our waist lines a bit. When I was paying for everything I noticed those ubiquitous energy “shots” that guarantee “4 hour energy” or some similar promise at the check-out counter.
Of course I started to wonder. Are there really so many tired people out there that they need an energy boost in the middle of the day? The answer is obviously yes, or else the companies that produce this stuff wouldn’t be proliferating so.
Why are people so tired? I assume that these things are being sold in the middle of the day to ordinary working people. I mean, that seemed to be the typical clientele of this particular establishment, and there was no college nearby where students might be amping up for an all night study (or party!) session.
So the question remains. Why so tired? Some folks claim the problem is our diet. At least here in North America the food tends to be prepackaged, highly refined, high in calories and fat and low in natural goodness, regardless of what the labels might say.
Other folks say that people are tired because they are running uphill, against their own natural current. When people do what they are meant to do, they naturally find the way easy and smooth. It’s as if we are all swimming in our own individual “rivers,” and when we swim with the current (follow our nature) we progress fast and easily. At times we can almost coast and let the natural momentum take us away.
Of course the opposite is true when we do not swim with our natural current. Instead, we may look at the direction others are swimming and mistakenly assume that we are all in the same river. If they are swimming in that direction, we think, then we had better do that too. Yet we don’t realize that the ones we are following may be swimming with their natural current, while we would not be. Or, more likely, they may be doing exactly what we are, and following the crowd. And it’s hard going. And tiring. And progress is slow. And we wonder why. Why aren’t I more successful? Why am I so tired? Why haven’t my dreams come true?
I believe that it is only when each of us discovers the nature of our own personal “river” – our true path – that we can arrange ourselves so that we flow with the strongest part of the current, right over the falls if need be. And we have nothing to fear because we are doing exactly what we were meant to do. All of our effort is magnified twenty times as compared with when we fought against our true nature.
Think about it. Are you often tired? More than you think that you should be? Put down the donut, pick up a carrot, and think about the river you have been swimming in.
Thanks and all the best,
Hugh
