Meditation for February 25th
Being Good Enough
Since you were able to understand language, teachers, parents, and Facebook memes have been telling you you’re good enough. The message that permeates all spiritual growth programs is that you are perfect the way you are. God made no junk. You are a unique snowflake, and no one is like you, so embrace yourself.
This is the biggest illusion of all. You are actually not good enough. You don’t know enough; you are not strong enough; there is always someone prettier, better, and smarter than you. If you were good enough, why would you be reading a daily meditation blog? Because deep down inside, you know that you could be so much better than you are.
You have spent your entire life worrying about what others think of you, so you try to dress and act like certain cultural icons and talk like them, but you are just copying others. You are a snowflake, but one that has already landed in a snow drift and is unidentifiable from all the other snowflakes in a giant white hill on top of a white Suzuki Sidekick somewhere in New England. There is nothing special about you. Accept that you are like everybody else.
We strive for perfection, but perfection is unattainable. Why are you even trying? Why not accept being a mediocre person who will have no impact on history? Don’t just be humble; be humiliated with everything you’ve become. There is no point in thinking that you are going to leave a lasting legacy, if you have kids, they will die too, and with them your memory, and if no one remembers you, there was nothing that you lived for that meant enough to solidify your place in history. If you are lucky, you leave behind some art, a book, or some other kind of creation that can last a few generations, but again, who knows how much longer people will want books and art?
The best way to grow is be torn down to the bare bones and built back up. I am doing this right now by telling you that you are not anywhere good enough. Let’s start over. Let’s throw away all that garbage you thought was important and begin something new. You can be whatever you want, so stop trying to be stupid things and stop doing whatever everyone else is doing. Embrace the uniqueness.
Prayer
God of Self-Help Memes and Inspirational Quotes,
I beseech you, actually, to help me,
I am lost,
I have wasted my youth becoming something that doesn’t matter now that I am an adult.
I spent all my money on clothes, records, and going to shows, and now I have nothing to show for myself but weird tattoos and a dishwashing job at nearly 40.
Inspire me.
Help me find the real me.
Because I fucking did all this leather mullet rock thing to get laid, and now I’m a creepy old guy who is trying to buy young girls Old Crow and PBRs as I did twenty years ago when I was young and not creepy.
Now I am alone, and I look at you, inspired by quotes from Mark Twain, the Dalai Lama, or Ursula K. Le Guin to help me find myself, realizing I ignored my entire twenties and thirties by not investing in myself.
I’m as old as my parents were when I graduated high school, and living in a basement in a house with five other lost souls on a mattress on the floor with a Red Fang and Megaton Leviathan posters on my wall and not a single piece of clothing with any color, so I look like a mime from a Mad Max movie.
Please inspire me to grow up twenty years too late.
Help me to be the man I ought to be instead of the man I thought I fought for at community college, those three times I went.
So, self-help quotes set against a serene beach scene, a mountain reflecting a sunset, or a trail winding through a beech forest give me an idea of who I really am.
Amen.
Tarot Spread
A tarot deck is a must-have for spiritual inspiration on the go. You can sit anywhere and do a quick spread to give you a pick-me-up or find help with a direction or decision you need to make.
Find a tarot deck where the symbols speak to you. There are many to choose from. Some are traditional, while others can get very creative. Some are just novel, but can be useful if you understand the symbols.
To find yourself, start each morning for 31 days with three cards in a row.
Card one is who you secretly are
Card two is what’s blocking you from being that person
Card three is the action you can take to become the real you
After deciphering the first three cards, take a fourth card and put it above the first three. This card is why you will never be the real you, ever, no matter how hard you try, so stop playing around with witchcraft cards and go to work. God, you are weird.
Goal
The real lesson here is that no matter how hard you work on yourself, there is always room for more growth. Even if you find yourself coming out of the darkness with some of the things you are trying to let go, this is to make room for more stuff you have to learn to let go. This process goes on ad infinitum, and this is why it is great news that we are mere mortals, for working on oneself for longer than a century brings a real insanity that humans are unable to fathom or tolerate.
So pick and choose what you work on and make a good priority list because you’ve already wasted your life up to this point thinking you are just good enough the way you are.