I've noticed that people (specifically the people who dream the American Dream) are really good at preparing to live fruitfully and prosperously. I have observed that humans know how to sacrifice the majority of their lives to obtaining pieces of papers through disingenuous education and painstaking career paths. Years of self-mutilation and self-imposed misery for some paper by means of flawed educational and economic systems all so they can live the dream. And slowly, yet, surely the dream aligns together: the marriage, afterwards, a promotion, then the kids, the fancy car, and the red door and white picked fence house. It's happening. They wake up one day and realize they made it. The long-awaited thing -- they're living it. However, instead of a burst of glee they feel deeply disappointed. Let down because they feel no real difference -- nothing has changed. It feels like a scam and there was a scam. They missed everything and the old-folks' home is just around the corner.
Perhaps you've noticed this, too -- noticed that the American Dream isn't very dreamy; that you are not defined by the convenience of your occupational title, your material things, or your annual wage nor by the labels others give you; that we know how to prepare to live, however, not how to live. These unfortunate American-dreamers seem to forget or rather fear to accept and implement this vital dynamic into their lives: the dynamic that we are alive in the now, in the present, not in the future nor the past. And that deeply, the past and future are illusions and the present is all there is and ever has been.
Perhaps you've noticed this, too -- noticed that the American Dream isn't very dreamy; that you are not defined by the convenience of your occupational title, your material things, or your annual wage nor by the labels others give you; that we know how to prepare to live, however, not how to live. These unfortunate American-dreamers seem to forget or rather fear to accept and implement this vital dynamic into their lives: the dynamic that we are alive in the now, in the present, not in the future nor the past. And that deeply, the past and future are illusions and the present is all there is and ever has been.