Choices, Choices

Modern life is full of choices.  What do I want to be when I grow up, where should I live, who should I choose to marry?  What should I have to drink to make the moment, a cup of coffee or some herbal tea?

There are no easy choices, it seems. For example, whereas coffee is a drink made for get up and go, nothing beats a good cup of herbal tea when it’s time to sit back and enjoy the scene.

Now, I’m not adverse to a cup of Joe. I’ve enjoyed the sweet caffeinated embrace of coffee since I was a young lad.  It’s just as I look around and see everyone desperate  to get to where they know not where, I’m happy to watch the race from the stands,  tea cup in hand.

Maybe it’s that time in my life. I’m getting up there in years. The Medicare solicitations that I get everyday in the mail painfully remind of of that fact.  My mind seems to be rejecting all the striving for status and riches that seem so prevalent in society in favor of a quest for spirituality and meaning in my life.

If not a reaction to the advancing of my years, I may be seeking an anecdote to the destruction of the environment that our way of life has wrought.  It’s hard for me to look at what’s going on in the world and not see a need for change.  The greatest and most impactful change I can see needed is how we relate to our environment.  For too long, society has treated the earth and all it’s vast resources, as our personal playground, to be exploited to any degree necessary for our comfort and amusement.

We have been so wrapped up in our self centered and consumptive ways that we’ve hardly noticed that our way of life is stripping our planet bare.  Our economies are built for endless growth, feeding our unquenchable desire for more, more, more.   But, as the saying goes, we cannot expect endless growth on a finite planet.  Something to meditate on.

What better way to cap off a bit of meditation than with a warm cup of tea?