One of the greatest gifts and worst curses of humanity is our ability to become acclimated to something. That simple ability of habituation that allows us to literally forget for an extended period of time that things don't have to be the way they are. Everyone knows the feeling. For example, when I had a nasty sore in my mouth, it was all I could think about (well, not ALL, but it took up a great deal of my concentration when I wasn't engaged in something interesting). However, no more than a day after the sore healed, I became completely oblivious to my mouth. Go figure.
This reminds me of a Buddhist fable. One day, a layman approached a Zen Monk and asked him for advice. The Zen Monk responded, "Know that you will always have 21 problems in your life." The layman replied, "What? That doesn't help me. How is that supposed to help me?" The monk replied, "Worrying about those 21 problems will become an unnecessary 22nd problem." Oh, got him.
And this post just got totally off topic. But I wanted to tell that story anyway, and now I've told it. I'll get back to the simple feeling of being in a later post.
Namaste.
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