What Really Matters?

At this point in my life I often find myself quietly wondering “What Really Matters?”. There’s so much going on in this world that it often gets confusing. There are so many things we’re supposed to be concerned about, it really gets very stressful. When asked “What Really Matters?” people often respond by saying “health” or “my children”, but that doesn’t seem to go deep enough for me.

It’s time to fight the busy-ness of today’s world and seek out what really matters.

The busy-ness of today’s world

These days we are bombarded with information, requirements, demands, things we “must” do, things we “must not” do, things we must buy, bills we must pay, things we must think, etc., etc. It’s very hard to handle, but we somehow get used to this and begin to think it’s normal.

It’s more than a bit scary to see how happy, beautiful children are turned into adults who are extremely stressed

When we were born, we had nothing except the love of our parents and the perfect little body we came in. And we were happy and content. No problems or stresses except to make sure we were fed and had our nappies changed. Then the world stepped in and changed all of that. It wasn’t long and there were certain clothes that had to be worn at certain times and the need to go to school. We were taught that if we didn’t get a good education we wouldn’t get a good job and then we wouldn’t earn enough money to buy all the things we “needed” and pay taxes. Even worse, we’d have to work in a good job for about 40 years to save enough to pay for ourselves after that. It’s more than a bit scary to see how happy, beautiful children are turned into adults who are extremely stressed “trying to make ends meet”, nervous, anxious and, to some degree, despise their appearance and themselves.

Religion doesn’t help either as sometimes we’re taught that we were born sinners and we have to spend our whole lives trying to prove to God that we shouldn’t just be thrown into hell. Wow, what a messed up world we have sometimes.

None of this is helpful at all because the motive behind this advertising is just sales.

Advertising made by commercial companies adds more pain. They tell us how we should think, what we should want, what we should think about other people and how we should feel about ourselves. None of this is helpful at all because the motive behind this advertising is just sales. They want to sell us what they have to make a profit (as big a profit as possible) and they are willing to completely screw up our minds in order to do that.

As a result of all this, the system of the world and the busy-ness of it messes with our minds so much that we often forget what’s real and what’s not.

It’s time to fight the busy-ness of today’s world and seek out what really matters.

What Really Matters?

Have you ever noticed that some things are free and infinite? Take sunlight and air as two examples. So far, no government has been able to find a way for us to pay for sun and air. Also, for all intents and purposes, sunlight and air are infinite. Even though we can pollute our air very badly, there’s always enough air and sunlight for everybody.

In one way, life is also infinite. Just because thousands of babies were born today, that doesn’t mean no more babies can be born tomorrow. We assume that babies could be born indefinitely.

…there’s no doubt that we’d never run out of love

Love is infinite. Just because we love a number of people doesn’t mean we’ll get to a point where we can’t love a new person because “we’ve used up all our love”. In fact, we could love everybody and everyone else could love each other too. That’s an interesting thought, and there’s no doubt that we’d never run out of love.

It doesn’t take any effort to be peaceful

Peace is infinite. This is easy to see. The whole world could easily be peaceful. It doesn’t take any effort to be peaceful, it’s just a natural state. On the contrary, to be un-peaceful you need to introduce some negative energy into the system. Being un-peaceful takes effort.

Imagine that peace is a natural state (“the” natural state). If someone is at peace, then it follows that they will react lovingly to others. Both peace and love require no effort (note that this is what meditation really is – removing the effort and uncovering the peace and love for us to experience).

It’s easy to get the feeling here that peace and love and things that really matter.

If we had pure peace and love (and we do) and this extended across all of life, then certainly all of the busy-ness of life mentioned above would melt away and not exist.

Peace and love in their full purity are the things that really matter.

Where to now?

If you start something with pure peace and love, what could go wrong? Nothing. Something else would have to enter for something to go wrong. Something that wasn’t pure peace and love.

So how to go forward? In every moment we can seek the peace and love of the situation. It is always there. If there’s a lot of noise and shouting going on, for example, we are only aware of it because the noise and shouting is over the top of the constant backdrop of peace and love that is always there.

We can only identify objects because there is empty space around them

This idea is related to the fact that we can only identify sounds because there is silence before and after them. We can only identify objects because there is empty space around them. Silence and space always exists behind everything we hear and everything we see.

In the same way, peace and love always exists. These qualities are everywhere at all times. On top of this backdrop, we can add all sorts of noise, fear and hatred, but the peace and love is always there.

So, in every moment, we can search out peace and love and hang onto them as much as possible. Even in a terrible situation there is peace and love between the words, noise and fear. The more we can find and cherish peace and love, the better the world will become.

In general, our world has lost its way in recent times, but peace and love is the way. It takes no effort as it’s our natural state. Just remind ourselves and cherish every moment of peace and love possible. Peace and love are all that really matter. Peace and love are all there really is.

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Related Links – What Really Matters?

• Finding the Moment of Peace
• Here’s a lovely story from tinybuddha.com – Life Lessons on What Really Matters from a Dying Man
• What’s your end game?
• What would your Soul do now?