Perspective

Perspective:  A way of regarding situations, facts, etc., and judging their relative importance; the ability to think about situations and problems in a reasonable way without making them seem worse or more important than they really are.

For me, perfect happiness would mean getting everything I wanted, being in control of everything, playing Caesar, making the whole world dance a jig according to my every whim.  Then I look at people in history who have actually held this type of power.  These were not happy people.  Most assuredly they were not people at peace with themselves.  Why?  Because they were driven to control the world totally and absolutely and they could not.

They could not.

I meditate because I want to be able to control my own mind - at least to some little degree - and not the other way around.  My mind has been in control.  It likes being in control.  It likes calling the shots.  That's the function of the mind: to think and run the show.  That's normal and natural and may work for people who don't have a mind that runs amuck, that makes poor decisions, over and over and over again.  I want to recognize my desires but not be controlled by them.  It's okay to want something but the goal is not to be compelled to chase the desire.  It's okay to turn away from painful things but the goal is not to stand frozen in fear, quaking in my boots, unable or unwilling to take good, healthy action.  I believe that I can live a normal life but with a totally different viewpoint.  

Hold up a pencil, close your right eye, and line the pencil up with a tree in the background.  Then close that eye and open your left - suddenly the pencil leaps to the left of the tree, far out of alignment.  Same pencil, same tree, different perspective.  This is what I want: to own a pencil and to have eyesight in both eyes.  That's it!  Fuck the tree!  Who cares about the tree?  You can have the tree.  You can cut the fucking tree down for all I care as long as I can see and have a few pencils.