Was there another way to live?

As I stood there on the top of the mountain, the pain of the last few days felt worth it. You could say that it was almost dropping away. My awareness had moved from little old me to the vast vista of forest, snow-capped mountains and the ocean in the distance. I felt at one with it all.

Why couldn’t I bring this oneness feeling into my life permanently? Perhaps that was part of being human – to constantly shift the awareness out of the head, away from worrying about what was going to happen in the future or regretting what had happened in the path and just being with the beauty of the present moment.

It was a lot more challenging in the office. Sitting amongst a massive gathering of humanity, in one of the many man-made structures devoid of any natural energy, it always felt like something was missing. Like the connection that seemed to exist in nature had somehow been stopped or disrupted by the building of these behemoth concrete monstrosities. Was I being too judgemental? I thought to myself, momentarily casting my mind back to Friday when I was trapped in front of the laptop.

I couldn’t help but feel that we were meant to live differently. Somehow, we had it all wrong. Most people would agree with me on that – with their hump days, constantly looking forward to the following weekend or the next holiday and hating Mondays with a passion. This tends to be a discussion that surfaces over a scotch on a Friday night – well, maybe not quite so deep as I was experiencing here. I reckon they might think I’d cracked if I told them about this experience.

Those Friday nights always seemed to end up the same way. Someone would invariably say, “Well, what’s the alternative? I’ve got a mortgage to pay and kids to feed, so I’ve got no choice but to keep turning up” — to which everyone else would agree and then move on to a topic that was a lot more light-hearted and one that didn’t bring up this level of discomfort.

Standing here on the mountain, after hiking for what seemed like days, I couldn’t help but wonder – Was there another way to live?