Here for a good time
How the weather is a perfect metaphor for life
Photo courtesy of Charles Ray
It is often at night as I settle into slumber that my thoughts turn introspective.
Last night was no different.
My family will be going through a number of changes in the next few months as my youngest ventures off to England for her first year of University and my eldest relocates to the west coast for her final semester of College.
For the first time in 21 years, my husband and I will return to our original unit of two.
As thoughts of the future whirl around my head, I consider all of the known and unknown challenges that each family member may encounter as they move forward in life.
I smile to myself as I realize what my clever mind is trying to do; make the unknowable knowable and the uncontrollable controllable.
Left alone in the dark, our minds can attach to some pretty scary thoughts.
Heck...who’s kidding who?
Our minds are capable of attaching to scary thoughts in a room full of people on a bright sunny day!!!
In the midst of all of this 'scary' thinking, however, the chorus to a song made an appearance in my mind:
"We're here for a good time
Not a long time (not a long time)
So have a good time
The sun can't shine every day."
I smiled once again as my thoughts gave way to these lyrics...particularly the line, “The sun can’t shine every day.”
Weather is such a beautiful metaphor for life and, more importantly, for 'thought,' since both share a similar nature.
We often miss this similarity, however.
While we acknowledge that the nature of weather is ever changing and essentially beyond our control, we more often than not miss the fact that 'thought' works similarly; it is ever changing and essentially beyond our control.
Thought comes and goes like the weather; moving in and out of our minds, effortlessly. Unfortunately, we can innocently disrupt this natural flow by erroneously assuming that any undesired 'metaphoric weather' we experience (eg. low mood) is both permanent and reflective of WHO we are as a person.
When this happens, we've lost sight of three things:
1. The nature of thought, like weather, is transient.
2. WE are not the weather. We are much bigger than that.
3. WE are the SKY...
merely experiencing the weather of our thoughts and moods, as they pass through our minds.
Much like we experience sunny days and rainy days, we experience sunny thoughts and rainy thoughts.
Our saving grace is in trusting the design and letting such thoughts pass like clouds in the sky.
We're here for a good time
Not a long time (not a long time)
So have a good time
The sun can't shine every day
* May You Find Peace Kate Spade.