“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive – to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”

-Elisabeth Kubler -Ross

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m seriously behind.

I don’t write as much as I’d like to.

I don’t publish as many articles as I’d like.

I don’t even come close to helping as many people as I’d like.

Of course, what I would like and what I actually do make quite the difference.

Shortening this distance mends the personal discrepancy of what I think I should do and what I am actually, personally, accountable for. The smaller this degree of differentiation, the shorter the distance of pretend, the closer I am to self-realization.

Realizing that I’m behind brings me great joy.
When I accept that I’m behind, I realize that it’s perfectly okay to be behind. To be where I am.
I am exactly where I am.
This is where I am: here.
Each and every moment of behind, I remain here, even when I’m ahead.
I can be no where else.

Accepting that I’m behind, I come to see that there is always much to do and much more to do. I do what I can then I take a break. I know I’m still behind, but I’ve done as much as I can do today, which is in fact, all I can ever really do. The fact remains, I am still behind and the potent urge to achieve is always still to come. Potential is waiting to be fulfilled at every opportunity and released from mental contrast and conceptualization into the manifest world. This is called a turning point.

Being behind is natural.
No one has the game all figured out.
Nobody is exactly where they want to be all of the time. It is impossible.
Each of us gets sick, suffers discomfort, feels disconnected, touches the cold hands of loneliness, and suffers various difficulties in our lives.
Normally, we refer to these as setbacks and view them almost wholly as purely pessimistic chains of reaction.

But, I chose different.
I cannot help but see them as advantageous.
Being behind is actually marvelous, star-striking, and awesome.
From the rear, I can see what everyone is up to. I see their games of separation and their short-sighted deceptions. I see who means well, who sacrifices themselves for the sake of others, and who understands that life is more than working away our lives. I also see the parents who work away their own lives in order to provide better opportunities for their children. From the back, I can see the whole pack.

I can see what they are all doing on the surface, while I remain off in the distance perfectly content with being behind. As they fight to remain on top, I am cool and comfortable where I am.

Being behind is serene. When I’m not behind, which I am, I get bored, wondering what I’ll do next, or I’m so occupied in fighting to retain my pace with the pack that I end up stumbling, falling in the rush of things and finding myself once again, behind. I’m always behind.

You see, the trick is in seeing the beauty behind being behind.

And actually all of us are always, constantly behind. This is a certain fact. How can we be ahead of where we are? It’s only the surface that changes and we remain eternally behind. Left in the dust of days ago. May we draw an avidness of strength in our contemplation of this.

We imagine we are ahead of the gang, of our lives, and progressing to some where. But, we are only ahead of yesterday, still and yet, behind tomorrow. Which is where we are.

The reality is we are the benefit of being behind.

We are always still to come.

There is always more.

More meaning. More complexity. More depth.

And all of it arises from behind the surface. Inside the surface.

Stuck in stillness, we realize our behindedness as there instead of here.

Being the impulse, we become urgency.

Staying calm in desperate calamity, a true I emerges.

Do the same to find what’s different.

See behind to get ahead.

“There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.”

-Albert Einstein

Thanks Torkild for the photo of CERN’s server room.