I Forgot To Live In It...

by Ma'ikwe Somerville-Ludwig

I’m playing with my son, Jibran, making houses on the floor out of blocks. He is having a wonderful time, asking me to make him one, then directing the construction. “Make me a door, mama!” “It needs to be bigger...” He is the perfectly happy 3-year-old in command of his universe.

Part of the game is wrecking the house when I’m done. We are rolling along just fine, making, destroying, making, destroying... when Jibran suddenly stops and looks at me with a horribly serious look on his face. “Uh-oh. I forgot to live in it.”

Hmm...doesn’t that sound familiar! Forgetting to actually live, breath, enjoy the wonderful creations we make. I hear it time and time again in some form or another from my friends and family, and it is familiar because I’ve experienced it myself.

Not taking or making the time to be happy with our lives and not even seeing the point of doing something that may give us the skills to be happier people. Finally reaching a long-worked-toward goal, only to start on something new the next day. Or worse yet, taking the time to celebrate, only to notice that our achievement means nothing to us when our spiritual, personal and family lives are barely occupied, let alone really relished. Uh-oh, indeed.

Two basic skills are missing from most people’s lives, and they are just two of the things I’ve seen Avatar deliver consistently to people from all walks of life. First, the ability to be really present and enjoy what we are doing to its fullest extent—that is, to actually live in our own lives. And second, to decide on, move toward and actually achieve goals that are fulfilling when we arrive there.

What Avatar teaches seems on the surface to be contradictory – to become more and more flexible and accepting of whatever our lives currently look like, and at the same time to be pro-active creators of what we actually prefer. The secret that I found missing for years in other spiritual and personal growth work is that neither works very well without a good dose of the other. One path encouraged me to let go of self-judgments and go with the flow, while another would send the message, “Go for it!”

Confusing, indeed, when each approach is labeled “The Way” and the other is avoided as misguided (or worse).

My joy in Avatar comes largely from knowing that in any given situation, I have multiple tools that can assist me in being present and happy, and moving toward my own goals. There is no “The Way,” here, but rather a series of paths that all lead back to the experience of living fully in the life I am creating.

And as my son will gladly tell you, living is really the prize.

Ma’ikwe Somerville-Ludwig, Sarvis Point Avatar Community, Missouri

 

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