Introducing... The Perfect Essay!! πππ
(or, how to enjoy being ordinary & being you)
I woke early, the first day of 2024, thinking: today is the day that I will write you the perfect essay.
It will demonstrate my dazzling brilliance as a wordsmith. It will bring incisive wisdom and scoops of healing balm to whoever needs it. It will (as a happy by-product) go viral and bring me thirty thousand new subscribers and fountains of praise and enough money to put down a deposit on a cute cottage in the country.
βWow! Mmm! Oh, Iβll never forget that sentence. Did you see what she did there? Oof! Who IS this woman???β
During my morning meditation, mid-brain scramble as I plotted what I was going to write, I suddenly remembered that I was meant to be starting my anti-New Yearβs Resolution. Five minutes of each day of January, imagining that I am loveable just as I am.
Everything stopped. Knowing that I was already enough whooshed through me. Tears sprung to my eyes. It was almost too much to bear. The knowing skittered away again, leaving me with the echo of a smile.
I do know that I donβt have to write you the perfect essay in order to be loved, or to prove to myself that Iβm worthy. I forget. I know that what the world actually wants from me is that I just be Satya. Limited, fallible, flawed. Prone to delusions of grandeur and sucking greed. Skilled at giving Dharma talks and stroking the bellies of happy dogs. Sometimes infuriating, sometimes shining with genius, and for the vast majority of the time (like all of us) averagely ordinary.
This year Iβm going to get on board with enjoying being ordinary. Iβm going to enjoy writing the ordinary sort of essays that Satya writes, like this one. Iβm going to be more realistic with my expectations of myself and of others. Iβm going to make myself a channel, as much as I can - receiving blessings, filtering them through my Satya-ness, and offering them out.
I finished my meditation and walked into town for the second, public part of my daily prayers to the Earth. A couple of people had promised to join me but they didnβt come and so I was blissfully alone. It was cold out, and quiet. In between car-whooshes I could hear nearby water burbling, and a sprinkle of birdsong.
I had left the book I usually take to town in my office where my mum was sleeping, and so I took the book Iβd just used during my online meditation instead. This poem (I promise I am not making this bit up) was next:
Honesty and truth. Unremembered quiet words. Unnoticed acts.
The sky was so blue. I sat on the cold steps and watched the clouds - so bright! So various! So themselves! - and my eyes filled with tears for the second time.
Happy New Year.
Satya <3
My Anti-New Yearβs Resolution invitation starts today and the next essay, on why New Yearβs Resolutions often fail, goes out tomorrow. If you would you like to receive the rest of the monthβs essays but canβt afford the subscription right now do let me know (satya@satyarobyn.com) and I will gift it to you - it would be my pleasure.
Love this: βThis year Iβm going to get on board with enjoying being ordinary. Iβm going to enjoy writing the ordinary sort of essays that Satya writes, like this one.β Your Aiko photo is adorable, and I mean this is a good way, made me think of Falcor from the Neverending Story!
Good morning and Happy New Year! Satya, thank you so much for your kind, honest and thought inspiring words. I have been seaching for my word of the year. A long and evolving list. I choose Enough, Humble, Connection, Self discipline, Kindness, and Support, all good but not rich enough. I finally found the right one...SERVICE.ππ