Let it Snow!
Daily Meditation #296–12/15/2022
There’s a great old saying ““If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow.”
Isn’t this a fantastic way of perceiving the world?
We just got pounded with about a foot of wet, heavy, dense snow, here.
So many here will gripe and cry and complain.
“The roads suck.”
“Shoveling sucks.”
“The cold sucks.”
No, no.
The manner through which you perceive things (your attitude) sucks.
If you live in a place where the snow is 100% inevitable, why would you ever consider complaining about it?
Is it inconvenient? At times, absolutely.
But, should it — or anything — have the ability to rob you of joy?
Why would you ever give anything or anyone such a power?
Much like Thich Nhat Hanh says “just wash the dishes,” so too should we “just shovel our snow.”
Or do our laundry.
Or leave early to try to avoid traffic.
Or brush our teeth, go to the bathroom, or make our bed.
There are ample inconvenient and recurring events in our lives.
You can choose joy.
Or you can choose misery.
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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
