In Grasping

I so much need to continually remind myself to simplify my life . . . not just of material things, but even experiences. The following by Thomas Merton is all too true:
If what most people take for granted were really true -- if all you needed to be happy was to grab everything and see everything and investigate every experience and then talk about it, I should have been a very happy person, a spiritual millionaire, from the cradle even until now . . . What a strange thing! In filling myself, I had emptied myself. In grasping things, I had lost everything. In devouring pleasures and joys, I had found distress and anguish and fear.
+ pax