Most of us are going to live between 70 and 90 years. Then, we are going to die. We will not be here anymore. There will be memories of us. Our friends will recall us in their past tense discussions. A few of our loved ones will deeply miss us. For a while, the people we have known will feel a void at our passing. But, eventually, and quickly in the light cast by the millions of years that is existence, we will be gone. We will be a brief thought in our golf buddy’s mind, a passing feeling in our widow’s heart, a mimicked word or phrase in our children’s voice. We will be nothing more.
For many years in my life, I struggled hard with accepting this fact. It made no sense. What did being alive mean if this was going to be all there was? Where was my significance? Where was my power? All of this gnawed at my faith, my fear, and ultimately my well-being
Eventually I stumbled upon the concept of viewing life as a daily tending of a pasture. We each have a pasture which is our life. Whether we like to consider it or not, that pasture has boundaries. It is within these boundaries that we find any power and control we may think we have with being alive.
When we pay attention to these boundaries and do our very best each day to take care of everything and everyone that lives within them, we find our purpose. When we stray outside of these boundaries, we start to feel frustrated, overwhelmed. We alienate others with our behaviors and alienate ourselves with our doubt. Away from our pasture, we begin to feel powerless, and it is then we experience a loss of meaning.
If someone comes into our pasture unannounced, even when well meaning, we are on alert regarding their intent. If they proceed to tell us how better to work our pasture, we are probably offended. When we try to go into another person’s pasture, stepping out of our own even if with good purpose, we are not quite sure of our footing or what our next steps may be.
Some of us are comfortable spending time away from our pasture and some of us are not as comfortable doing so. All of us feel most comfortable and more fulfilled whenever we have returned to it after being gone. The more we make it our business to tend our own pasture in life and keep doing so, the more we find our direction and significance.
Continuing the metaphor of life and our pasture, as we grow older, we start to notice there is a dark unknown forest that borders our farm on the backside. We wonder why we have not noticed it before. Perhaps it was always there, and we were just too busy to see. But now we have, and we are both drawn to it with our curiosity and repelled by it by its shadows. We do not want to go into it. We sense we must one day. What could be out there?
As we grow even older, we begin to understand we must leave our pasture one day and go by ourselves into the dark forest alone never to return. It is going to happen, and there is no choice. This fact overwhelms many of us and centers others of us. All that we can ever do is wake up tomorrow and each morning there is after, working our pasture within its boundaries the best we can. We will all define and interpret how to do this for ourselves. And our definintions and interpretations will all be different. It must be this way.
For me this has meant that I want to tend to my pasture with a positive attitude and kind intentions as much as possible in every moment. I am not always good at behaving on my intentions, but as the forest has grown closer on the backside of my property, I am getting better at doing so.