Are You Kidding Me?

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever I want.  It's my doing what needs to be done even when I'm facing headwinds.  It doesn't mean I can do anything that pleases me.  There are things I can't do whether they're restricted by laws or moral issues or safety concerns.  I didn't use to care about those restrictions.  Restrictions were for chumps, in my way of thinking, until I found out the consequences of not following rules.  I was a sloooooowwww learner.   Today free will means doing things like changing selfish behavior.

Today am I thinking about tomorrow or a week from now?  I have so many things left that I want to do in the increasingly short period of time I have left.  I'm better off looking at what I have accomplished in my life, my career, my family dynamics.  I'm usually surprised when, after telling someone who has inquired after my day. I receive a compliment, when I'm embarrassed at how little I think I've done.  

The Dali Lama again here talking about contentment, specifically addressing contentment with respect to food and clothing and housing . . . "By reducing expectations you will promote contentment which is called liking meditation and abandonment.  We should be contented in material areas, for those are bound by limitation, but not with regard to the spiritual, which can be extended limitlessly.  We should not be content with the degree we have when it comes to compassion and altruism."

I was fortunate to attend primary school and university with people who were often wealthy.  I was surprised repeatedly at how ordinary their contentment was; no greater than my neighbors in my solidly middle class neighborhood.  I listen to billionaires bitching about taxes and wonder: "What the fuck?  Are you kidding me?"