The daily grind?
Life is hard for everyone, you are not alone, it is the nature of living, change happens and it causes discomfort, or you wake up knowing exactly how hard the day is going to be and that there is no escape from the treadmill. Even moments of pleasure contain the fear of losing that feeling which you always do, feelings fade and being at ease with this oscillation of pleasure peaks and painful toughs is a practise that takes mastery of self that requires total dedication, despite life everyday sending you a thousand teachers in the forms of suffering and your own internal narrative. The daily grind can help you ignore them by keeping you busy or it can increase their numbers, these cruel teachers demand your attention, they slap your face, cause you tension and play on your fears, welcome to the grind.
You can be engaged in the grind all day long from the alarm clock in the morning to reading a book until midnight, but the moment you turn off the lights, your fear, insecurities and anxiety will be waiting for you in the peace of night to whisper into your ears. The grind helps to get things done, it can serve a purpose that satisfies you but the grind has to stop and then you have to be at ease with who you are. Not that the grind is only a distracting mechanism, it gets stuff done, and if you are not, that means you have no grind or it is ineffective, the grind needs a purpose, a reason for what it is doing otherwise it is just a clock work toy doing it's dance, it might look pretty from the outside but there is nothing going on in there and your view is from the inside so there is no hiding from the fact.
If you have no grind, nothing will get done, inspiration is only reliable in it's infrequency, it can happen but if you are not ready it can be lost before you have got your pen and paper out, you can wait to be in mood to do chores however in the meantime you will inflect neglect on yourself, living in a mess, eating out of cans, wearing unwashed clothes and smelling of yesterday's sweat. Somethings just need to be done most days, and to do them in the most efficient way possible requires small amounts of effort everyday, to cook a meal, you need the ingredients to have been brought, a kitchen that has been cleaned and a little knowledge from practise, each the result of previous grinding, you can avoid this, but it costs, you can always eat take out, so you have to work to earn the money which takes more time than the grind itself.
The grind is good, it makes your life easier, keeping yourself in order, it is real world self-care and it is a lot easier to stay healthy than it is to regain your health, prevention is better than cure. It is an act of self-service, it might be boring without the context of the purpose of self-love, it honours the life you have, by caring for yourself, you feel cared for. It is always worth asking the question how can I make my life better or easier today, what is the smallest action I can take and then take it, and move on the next thing, that is a healthy grind, it works towards your happiness, and when you are happy it is so much easier to care for others. If you can be, be greedy for your own happiness in the first hour of your day, clean your body, wake up your mind with meditation, let your dog take you for a walk, it is beautiful out there (even when it rains), other people will appreciate your good mood especially those that rely upon you. Make it part of your daily grind as it is grind with purpose, to be the best version of yourself so that you can love and be loved with gratitude, it prepares you for the grind that you do for others.
Some of the grind will be hard work, that is the nature of grind, it grinds, you might have to grind for money, there is no shame in that, you need money, it is the tool that gets things done, you can even enjoy parts of the grind. The process of doing even the things we like, involves the need to get started and changing our frame of mind from one thing to another which takes effort. Putting your shoes on for a walk is a barrier to going for a walk, it is the grind part of walking, it is a necessary step, what needs to be done to get to the good stuff, the fresh air and the joy of moving your body, but not many people get joy from putting on your shoes, it is a neutral event for most of us (if you are depressed it might even be too much effort, and if it gives you pleasure, there is no judgement here, go for it!) that we grind past.
However we do have the opportunity to change the nature of the grind if we wish, there is the quality of our attention that often gets ignored, you have to chose it but there is at least a choice, when we focus our attention (and we have two ways of knowing the world, attention and awareness) on anything it becomes of interest to us. We might not like it or enjoy it but it stops being a grind, we can only grind through things that we are aware of but are not paying attention to, the grind sits there whilst we get past whatever it is we are doing, our attention might be anywhere, we might be thinking of what to eat or what our sister did to upset us, or we can distract ourselves by listening to podcasts, music. Ignoring the grind, does not make it go away, it only disappears when the activity of the grind is fully engaged in, when you bring your full attention to it, when you give it your care, duty and devotion, then it becomes an act of love.
It might be self-love or a loving act for someone else, it does not matter, it is about changing the intention behind the action, to bring it in alignment with purpose and giving it meaning. Before enlightenment, you carry water, chop wood and afterwards you carry water, chop wood, you do not have to wait for the lightbulb to turn on, you can bring light to whatever it is you do, it is attention and purpose working together, it is turning the grind into a game. By becoming the master of washing of dishes, cleaning the floor, doing the accounts, finding the joy in small actions (and life is a series of small actions) that the whole of our lives becomes lightened, we see the world with clear eyes and an open heart, the daily grind is the gate to our internal world, let it shine and do the work.
