I am driving to take a yoga class one morning and I am suddenly struck by how hard it can sometimes be to be a human being in the world. There’s the traffic. Unmet needs. The information overload. Illness. Pain. Other people. Pollution. Bills. Fill in the blank.

This line of thinking gets drawn into full relief as I walk up the steps to the yoga studio and am met with a strange chemical smell followed by what sounds like an old school dentist drill on steroids. Construction. It goes on below us all throughout class. Great.

How do we say “yes” to what is here, and simultaneously work to change what is not working in our world? How do we see what is possible and let go of where we are needlessly bashing ourselves up against something that is never going to budge? How do we expect from ourselves and others what is decent and reasonable, and maybe even noteworthy, and forgive all the inevitable ways that we and others will not match up to our hopes and expectations? How do we give life the serious intent and commitment that it deserves while holding it as lightly and easily as we would a funny, well-placed joke?

And how do we know what to do, when? As in, in any given moment, which side of the coin “should” we fall to? Further, when we choose a side, can we remember to always remember to include the other end?

As I step out of class, a man is carrying full water bottles into the lobby, and empty ones back out. I hold the door for him and ask,”How’s it going?” “Living the dream,” he says to me with what I detect as a note of sarcasm. I respond by saying “I really never know what to make of it when someone says that to me.” To which he says, “Sometimes it all just seems like a dream.” Pause. “Or maybe a nightmare.”

As I walk away I think to myself, “Dream? Nightmare? That’s up to us.” But as I think about it more I also see that not only does it depend upon our level of consciousness, but that it is actually both. That life actually includes it all. Always. The question being, how will we be within ourselves and with one another as we live out our individual and collective dream-nightmares?