Excitement. You look for excitement. You think happiness is being excited. But happiness is quiet. Excitement, like anger, is heated to a boil, and it wears you down. Excitement shows an attachment to an anticipated result. You are excited that something you would like very much is going to happen or has just happened. When it actually happens, the excitement may last another minute or two, but then it leaves, and you want something else to take its place to be excited about.
Excitement hardly brings you fulfillment. Even if what you are excited about is fulfilled, you are not.
You are excited about a vacation, yet it is hard for a vacation to live up to your excitement. You wanted a shiny new bicycle, and now that you have it, excitement has ridden away. You feel unfulfilled when you don't have excitement, and unfulfilled when you do.
You cannot keep up the pace excitement gives you. Excitement is like running a race at full-speed, but races have the limit of a finish line, so you can rest in between one and another. Come to rest.
Excitement brings you its own let-down.
It is not that you are to pretend you are not excited. Neutrality is not for show. Neutrality is strength of vision, and it is on an even keel. Neutrality is not indifference. It is not aloofness or coolness. It is knowing who you are. Neutrality is knowing that whatever the wind blows, you are a walker through it.
You walk through autumn leaves and summer grass and winter snow and blossoms of spring. You, who walk in, walk out. You know the momentariness of everything around you, and you know that it does not adhere. Your walk is neither hastened nor slowed.
Your life is a walk through the woods.
Fear is a kind of excitement ahead of time although it is about something you don't want to happen. Neither fear nor excitement is warranted.
You expect a huge barrier up ahead or a big opening. Your holding on to the excitement of it does not make the barrier appear nor disappear. Better to wait and see the barrier or opening when you come to it. When you come to a barrier, then you can walk around or over it or whatever needs to be done, and you continue your walk. When you come to a great clearing, you have come to it, and you go straight through it, and then you also continue walking. When you have scaled a great mountaintop, you have scaled it, and now you keep walking.
You are the walker. You are in the midst of life, but you walk over it. Life is not the effecter of you. It doesn't whip you back and forth. But you have always thought that was exactly what life was and should be, and you hoped for it.
We could say that excitement is a rehearsal for life. We could say it is opening night run through again and again. We could say it is your race run from standing still, but even so, you are spending strength before the event.
Do not make a presentation before you are called on. Do not run races until the race. Do not work yourself up. The moment will appear, or it will not. Do not waste your life on excitement. That is really just skimming on the surface of life.
Be still a moment and welcome your life as it is right now. When the sun shines, welcome it. When the wind blows, welcome it. When it snows, welcome the snow. When the weather is hot, welcome it. When it is cold, welcome it. You are alive. Welcome your life. Turn your valve to welcome rather than excitement. Keep your setting constant. Look not for ups nor downs. Be the joy you look for. Be the fulfillment you seek. Be.
Say, "It's all right" to life. Say, "It's all right." Whatever is is all right. It doesn't matter that much. Whatever comes comes. Do not be mad at it because it is isn't what you ordered. Enjoy it anyway. Life doesn't have to be any way other than it is. Your life is not dependent upon one event or another. It is not dependent upon one twist and turn or another. Think differently about your life. Turn your thoughts around, and you turn your life around.