My Sunday Morning of Zen

When I am in Oklahoma City our day starts with gratitude, hydration, and our moments of solitude before our work day starts. Throw in a little exercise and we already feel productive. In Jupiter Florida at our second home it is a little different. We don't need the meditation as much as we need to eat breakfast early to get to the ocean to do our 1.5 to 2 hour walk. With the waves coming in, and the beautiful skies we have more than a moment of solitude and more continuing revelations. The picture above is what greeted us today with ocean storms creating a majestic backdrop. However, this was not the only Moment of Zen and not the most import one so read on below.

It is sea turtle hatching season right now and as the two of us walked the beach with Henri we came upon this little one who had hatched and was heading out to the ocean. I stopped to take the picture but this also caused a moment that seemed to last. I thought about this baby creature and remembered that for a 100,000 years or so his ancestors have been doing the same thing. The mother comes to the beach to lay the eggs and goes away and with instinct the baby emerges from the covered nest and knows exactly what do do. You see this is his existential moment where this creature's essence is his existence, they know exactly that the ocean is where they belong.

As humans we are the opposite. Our essence is not our existence because we determine what our essence is. My question to myself or anyone reading this is have you determined what your essence is? Is your current thought that you are doing exactly what you determined your essence to be? I am not trying to say that we completely control our destiny, that would be delusional. Life throws us curves, screwballs, and moment of boredom interspersed by sheer terror. But we have choice and this is an existential question that needs reviewing like I did this morning. Are you satisfied, content, motivated, fulfilled, and maybe even possess the hardest of conditions, happiness? To paraphrase Jimmy Buffet, I am a pirate looking at 70. I think I have had the blessings of at least two lifetimes lived. I feel a lot of this feelings I mentioned and looking at this young amazing creature, I felt the moment was eternal. The real joy is knowing that so much more is to come, changes will continue to happen, and every day I have left is a bonus. Life is good is a cliche? I'll take the cliche.