Writing to complain about taxes is a dead end.
Kind of a conceptual car wreck, actually -- just brings to mind political memes that set people off. No thank you.
My attitude to taxes is somewhat libertarian, but whatever. I know I gotta pay…
...aaaand I need to organize myself better — gathering the information and filing is much more of a hassle than it should be. It’s embarrassing. “Taxing,” even? If I was 20 years younger, I’d probably try to tell you that it’s “triggering.”
That’s my own fault, anyway.
But the dictionary sense of the word, “placing a heavy demand on someone’s resources, abilities or endurance” -- that comes to mind in the morning when I’m creaky and achy and sore.
Protesting or arguing about THAT is a waste of energy. It's the cost you pay to keep moving. Maybe you need more rest, but the relief is relative, never complete. You keep going.
Sort of sounds like the idea of pushing your rock up the hill, knowing it’ll roll back down and you’ll have to start over again and again?
Something like that. Like a college dorm conversation, asking “what’s the point?”
Or maybe it's a mid-life crisis question, “what’s the point?”
The problem is, if you don’t think there’s a point to things generally, the answers won't lead you anywhere. Maybe you quit moving. Maybe you listen to some smart guy telling you that everything just falls apart, leading to “the heat death of the universe” or whatever.
But that’s SO boring.
One of the first yoga classes I went to was led by this bubbly blonde chick. I’d be surprised if she was older than 23. The class was OK, but she was prone to leave you in a pose & talk at length about whatever. At one point everyone was holding some kind of lunge, the heater was pumping, and then she said, “let’s focus for a moment on GRATITUDE…”
I know I rolled my eyes, sweaty and dripping and shaking. I’ve talked about that moment in a mocking tone, many times. But now I actually DO think about gratitude, a lot.
Your life isn’t perfect, there are probably all kinds of things you don’t like about your body. But what happens when you see past what you're missing or what's wrong? This is what you've got. What happens when you appreciate what you have?
What happens when you see these things as gifts? No reservations or skepticism. Without even speculating where those gifts might have come from or why. Where does that put you?
There's no perfect state. No pure, unbothered condition for you to settle into. Even if you thought you found yourself in some sort of Utopia, it'd dissolve immediately if it's not maintained.
Pay the cost. Keep moving. That’s all.