Always try to remember that. Take it easy. We can’t worry about that shit. Life goes on, man.

I was recently in Mexico on an anniversary trip with my special lady friend. Took the jellies, of course. And as I sat and pondered over Palomas on the beach, I couldn’t help but think…”why don’t more of us sinners just take it easy more often?” Why do we wait until special occasions or have to schedule in downtime? What makes a man (or lady) want to push forward and drive and achieve and always, “go?”

I think it stems way back to our primordial brains. The tiny section in there that is working toward self preservation. At the root of our very beings is this urge to survive. Weird how that works. Our basic functions are to regulate temperature, have fuel and water to keep all our systems functioning and sleep to recover, rebuild and wake up ready to go again. If we ignored these activities, we would eventually wither, shrivel and die. Never to watch Lebowski again. And of course that’s against our nature, so we can’t have that.

Those basic, primordial systems of survival seem to want to improve and make things easier, but in order to achieve simplicity, we have to work at it. So we ponder and invent things in an effort to simplify. Then, while those inventions are improving lives, there is still a huge infrastructure behind those products and services that has to be maintained. So we work to keep those new systems running as smoothly as possible. And before you know it, we’re working so hard and such long hours that we’ve started to run out of time to cater to our basic needs of rest, relaxation and takin’ it easy. It’s a viscous cycle.

What in God’s holy name am I blathering about?! Well…I’ll tell ya what I’m blathering about. We need more, man. More time to ourselves. Time for reflection. Time to pause, refocus on what’s important. Shed off the burdens of the world, get into nature and enjoy what’s here on Earth while we can. Work can wait, but life won’t. Life goes on, man, whether you’re ready to enjoy it or not.

Always keep the Dude mantra in your heart.

Take it easy, man.