Daily the phrase “To Human is Hard” enters my thoughts. This became even more weighty and grave when Oxford dictionary released the phrase “brain rot” as the word of the year. One more complexity in the year 2025 to try and ward off and navigate.
Life presents so many challenges to steer; wounds, insecurities, assumptions, expectations and now the ‘brain rot’ from digital media. The human experience requires us to wake up each day with some faith. Faith that with all the challenges there is a flip side bearing some gifts for our hard work. Faith provides support that things will work out. The hardest part of the path presents itself when we do not do the hard human work. Often, we just decide to put unaddressed work on the backburner and other times we realize in retrospect that we possessed blind spots. Regardless of the experience of unaddressed life management, we do realize we must feel everything, be vulnerable and love ourselves through all the feeling. To be human is to ache with both sorrow and joy.
The adage that life is 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows is a good reminder. The more we can accept our messy human lives the more we can bring kindness to ourselves and others. We can decide to stop fighting who we are thereby growing into who we are fully meant to be.
The ancient poet Rumi wrote; “This being human is a guest house- every morning a new arrival. A joy, depression, a meanness. Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.” Our ability to remain receptive to our ever-changing guest house rests in taking cues from nature. To combat the perceived “hard” we can look for the “soft.” The soft conveys acceptance. In this receptivity we pause and take in our environment without reacting to it or looking for short-term gain. Most decisions regarding short-term reward are not as rewarding as we anticipated. We can look at trees that go dormant and experience transition and know, within us, we have these same tendencies we can appreciate. One can be reminded that a wildflower does not bloom every season and does not feel obligated to do so. Recently the non-vascular, spore-bearing land plant moss has provided me with lessons. It uses the environment by absorbing C02 and emitting oxygen. It reinforces the earth by minimizing erosion and is strong enough to deteriorate stone. What a powerfully fluffy, light, soft verdant teacher. When challenged with the human experience a new mantra as of recent has appeared. “Be soft like moss.” This catch phrase transmutes energy from one of hard ego posturing to soft mindful receptivity welcoming peace. May our lives be soft like moss as we work hard to be fully human.
