When you were a kid, did you go on a bike ride with a goal?

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When you were a kid, did you go on a bike ride with a goal? Did you go to, say, burn enough calories so you could squeeze your a** back into a pair of skinny jeans that were three sizes too small and cut off your circulation from the waist down?No, you rocked that banana seat like a boss with no particular objective in mind. Maybe life wasn’t easy, but still somehow you knew how to play. You knew how to flow.

What happened between then and now? (What didn’t happen, right?) Life happened. Responsibilities happened. Bills happened. At some point, life became no longer about experiencing What Is but doing what you needed to do get by… and, with some luck, scrape your way to the “next level.” Never enough, never enough, I think I can, I think I can.

Or, maybe by now you’ve achieved everything you set out to achieve (and more)—yet, still, something feels missing, off, as if you just aren’t quite there yet. If you could just get that something, then you will finally be at peace.

Here’s what’s missing: YOU. Not because you’ve actually gone missing, but because you believe the mind’s stories that say you have. And so the search for happiness and fulfillment continues.

This is what happens when we believe the endless stories the mind tells about how the future “me” is going to be better than the current “me.” Stories about how life should look and who we should be once things are finally going our way. Stories about how everything will be better once we fix this or that about ourselves, fix this or that about someone else, or master the One Handed Tree Pose. Stories about how if we could just meditate more, have a baby, make more money, go on another transformational retreat, lose five pounds, get rid of the baby, make it to the empty nest, have more kids, have less kids, or find that perfect person to love us, then we will be okay. Then we will be happy.

As children, we knew stories like these were lies. We knew what we were looking for was always right here, right now, with no particular place to go. We knew it naturally.

So why not take a page from our own childhood playbooks? Why not do the adult things we want, and need, to do—like setting goals, creating healthy habits, attracting healthy partners, and following our callings—but without the story that says fulfillment will be found in these future accomplishments, future lives, future selves?

What if we all stopped trying so hard to get somewhere we already are?

What if we hopped back on that banana seat and cruised around for a while simply because it’s FUN?

Yee-haw!
KB