On Burdens



The Unseen Side Of Honor

Burden is what shows us the unseen side of our responsibilities—our load.

Instead of honor, it is burden.  Or, to be exact, it is both honor and burden.

We have each other.
And the burden of each and every breath.
Each and every touch.
Each and every exchange.
There is family.
There is friend.
There is enemy.
All have his own basket of regrets, of unfulfilled wants, of unreached goals.

It’s a flowing stream.
Not meant to become anything.
Just movement.
But we don’t know that.
We think the people in our lives are real.
And not just a blur.

And so we come to feel burdened
by our own expectations,
our sense of failure,
or even success;
because success means more—
more is expected.
But today is not that other day.
The weather has changed.
There are different things to be done.
Other things to be accomplished. 

And yet as we age, the expectations before us get bigger and bigger.  Expect more of us as we begin to expect less of ourselves.

There is a real cost to having gained wisdom.  We know some of the path by now.  Know that what looks like a bloom is, in truth, a firecracker waiting to be set off, waiting to explode.

Revelations are no longer great joys or even greater sorrows.  They are just revelations.

Burdens.

I know now who you are.

And it’s time, perhaps, for a picnic—a respite—but life doesn’t go away now.  It is a constant companion.  No matter how much we seek rest, there is life.

There is burden.

That keeps us going.

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