What does meditation have to do with hamster wheels?

Quite a bit.

Have you ever noticed that you keep solving problems? And you keep winding up with new ones?

Somehow you don't quite get what you expected. You study for years to get a new career. Then that new career doesn't turn out as you had expected.

Welcome to the hamster wheel of Life. This is the endless struggle that is part of the duality in which we live. (I'm right, they're wrong. I'm good, they're bad.)

We seem to spend our lives in endless struggles doing things we don't like doing. Supposedly, once we accomplish some project, we'll finally really get to do what we like. Or we'll finally have enough money to do something worthwhile.

Perhaps we feel that we won't have time to make the world a better place until after we do something else to make money.

"You load sixteen tons. What do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt."

"Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store."

-- Tennessee Ernie Ford

This hamster wheel really begins in our own minds. We have some problem. We try to figure it out. We try to know how to handle the problem.

When we don't solve the problem, we beat ourselves up for not solving the problem.

Things get worse. We keep spinning.

This is the mental version of the hamster wheel of life.

The result of all this is endless churning. We get more and more into our heads.

How do you find peace?

You could meditate every day.

Copyright 2006 by Jim Kitzmiller

Jim Kitzmiller conducts self improvement workshops and retreats. He is the author of the Meditation Vacations website.