What’s old is new again…

I swear I meant to write this post a month ago, and in a horrible burst of irony never managed to find the time to do so, but here it is anyhow. I think I should warn everyone that my only degree is in Philosophy, and I’ve managed to shove that part of me down for a while, but apparently navel-gazing is the new black and so I’m dusting off my old philosophical thoughts and letting them out to play.

My friends were all reading A New Earth, and since I wanted to find out what the fuss was about I instructed my Kindle to fetch it for me and set to reading it. After reading it, I had a few thoughts…

First, I’m very pleased that Oprah is encouraging people to read and discuss things like this. These topics are important in our lives and by and large we just don’t make the space for them. Along with that I am highly amused that Tolle chose to cast Jesus as the ultimate Taoist. Don’t get me wrong, the bible is all filled with examples of what a zen individual Jesus was, but the churches in our world today tend to shy away from this kind of thought.

My main impression of the book is that it’s a nice melding of Taoist and existentialist philosophies, which I tend to like because those are two of my favorites. And reading it reminded me that I need to consciously take the time to remember the things that are important to me. Letting things go that don’t serve me is something that regularly escapes my priority list, and my internal list says this is more important than anything else.

I did come to a realization after reading the book (although it was ideas I’d processed before). I spend way too much of my time feeling guilty that I can’t do all the things I want to do. I have my priorities – my family, my work, my friends. And so many other things seem cool and wonderful, and I keep wanting to engage with new groups of people doing new things, that when I can’t find the space I feel sad… which is silly. The reason I can’t find space for new things is that my life is filled with wonderful friends and family, and a fabulous job. I’m not willing to give up any of my current things to have new things, and that’s perfectly reasonable.

Oh yeah, one other thing. One of my priorities has always been my health (even though I let it slip in importance sometimes) and to that end I’m doing the Danskin Triathlon at Disneyland this year – I’ve even talked some of my friends into joining me, and I’m really excited about it. I even made a website for our training and encouraging. So I guess that makes it family, friends, work and health. Oh, and singing! I’ve decided that’s important too, and I’m going to sign up for a class. But that’s it! Nothing else! If only I didn’t live in such an amazing town, I wouldn’t have to make these terribly difficult choices.