I question my ability to reflect

I never give myself time to sit and reflect. We have become so consumed by our lives, and everything that has to be done to enable our lives to run smoothly. While we sit and type away at our blogs or sit in traffic and grow more weary and angry at the people creating congestion, in our cars or online, we don’t make time to become detached from what we are constantly consumed by. All the while we’re living our lives, nature continues to change and shift while we plod along, our minds full with so much stuff, but so little substance. I don’t give myself time to think about anything that I care about, or to even wander what it is that I care about. I don’t have time to ponder about my religious beliefs because there’s always something ‘more important’ to be doing. But what if it all passes me by? We don’t know when it’s all going to end for us or the people we love most. My goal is to train myself to sit and think. Because, although I’m sitting in front of a rippling lake, and I’m well aware of the way the grass itches my legs and the breeze prickles at my arms, I still can’t help but be consumed by everything I have to do.

Wordsworth’s poetry was always a reflection on childhood innocence, how children have the curiosity and the open, un-socialised, un-indoctrinated minds, to marvel at the plants, the sky, animals, other humans, and everything that God created, which I know I look through or beyond every day. I think about, talk about, dream about money far more than nature. I hear traffic more than I hear the sea or the birds, and I can’t even tell you what absorbing and indulging in the beauty of nature even really feel like.

Stress has replaced harmony, for me, maybe for others, too. The idea of writing a blog – the stress, the deadline, my uncertainty and lack of confidence (due to my lack of knowledge) – far outweighs my enjoyment of sharing my thoughts. Self-consciousness, the need for self-importance, and the desire to feel competent and appreciated are universal human obstacles; perhaps these are the very obstacles in the way of throwing myself into this wholly and without reservation.

I don’t like that I have become someone who is no longer in touch with what really matters. Has the modern world, its obsession with materialism, and the need to be better than the next person changed us all? Or is it just me?

Image source: http://danferno.deviantart.com/art/Money-versus-Nature-107983689?q=favby%3Arubendegroote%2F40659439&qo=153