End the Dark Cycle of Discontentment with Life

Story about a small group of travelers who have found their way to a rocky valley and are forced to camp. People already at the campsite are complaining about the fact that the stream next to them is unclean, making the water unusable. But their complaining is so loud that they don't hear that there's another river, with clean, flowing water, just over the ridge from where they are.

This is the human condition. We are a generation of conspicuous consumption. We let our culture define what will be the next object of our desire. "If I can get this, or go there, it will bring me a new life." "New" therefore is a sensation that's identified with an image. But what is truly new actually brings a silence that's free from this web of desire.

How does one really start life over? What must take place to experience true stillness? Making a new start has nothing to do with finding something new - it requires you to become a new person. What is truly new is incomparable and is not an alternative - in fact it's actually something we need in our lives.

So many times we get what we think we want only to find a discontent start to creep in. Real starting over doesn't come out of uncertainty. If starting over doesn't come out of stillness then it's not starting over. Moments are not meant to be the springboard into the next moment. Starting over is an agreement to be in life exactly as it is. Allow yourself to see unflinchingly exactly what is happening now. There isn't a moment that doesn't have stillness in it. You needn't have courage, only a willingness to come to a stop.