So what do you want for Christmas?
I have been asked this odd question many times this holiday season. I say the question is odd because, after all, I want everything. I mean, I’m only human, so of course I want everything I can get.
But to paraphrase my non-human uncle, Mr. Spock, I have found that wanting & getting are two very different things. The wanting is what gets us up in the morning, what drives us onward, what keeps us going. But the getting is what weighs us down, what holds us back, & eventually what buries us in accumulated debris.
It’s the time of year when clever marketers manipulate our minds with a cruel vengeance, making us want & want & want without regard to the consequences of our getting. They make us feel imperfect, inadequate, inferior, & then they assure us all will be well if only we get this thing or that thing or everything. But when can we ever be happy in such a world? We can’t be happy when we’re made sick with wanting, & we can’t be happy when we’re made sick by the deep piles of old, worn-out, busted & boring stuff we were lucky to get not so long ago.
I’m not a clever marketer, but let me try very hard to manipulate you into desperately wanting just one more thing. You know what you simply must, must, must have in order to be happy?
Nothing.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, here is my gift to you this holiday season: you are perfect. You are exactly as you should be. You need absolutely nothing to fulfill your purpose on this planet. You were born naked & naked you shall return to the earth. So before you get suckered in to wanting anything else, why not turn out the lights, get naked, dance in the dark, & bask in a few blissful moments of not wanting anything at all?
It’ll be the best gift you ever got.
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