Fitting into the Right Pair of Jeans

It is truly a wonderful thing when you find a perfect pair of jeans. You know what I mean? The ones that fit you so perfectly, that hug your body in the right areas, but not too tightly. They feel like you are truly in your own element when you wear them. It is almost as if they are part of your body. With these jeans adorning your lower half, you look and feel great.

Only such a wonderful experience can make us search so hard. Jeans such as these are not usually an easy find. Entering a dressing room with an armful of jeans, you spend the next half hour trying on pair after pair. These don't quite fit right. These are obviously not the right size. Yikes! These feel okay, but the color of them is somehow strange. You think this pair will definitely be it! The right size, the right color, the right fit...no. The zipper is broken! Are you kidding me? The search goes on....

This search for the perfect pair of jeans popped into my head today when I was meditating on what I want in life. No, my life's dream is not the perfect pair of jeans. Well, not exactly. I realized the close relation to it today though. What I really want (a want that I suspect is shared by many others) is to fit in. Not fitting in by way of changing or molding myself to meet the expectations of others. So, not like squeezing yourself into a pair of jeans that are too small simply so that you can wear that size 4 that every truly beautiful and fit woman ought to wear (not my personal opinion on the matter). But fitting in by way of discovering and being my true self. The authentic self that has certain talents and strengths that will serve those around him/her in the best way. Becoming that being that is necessary for the peace of the being itself as well as the peace of the whole. The more I explore what this really means, I find things in my mind such as: Automatic recognition from myself and others that I am in the right place, doing the right thing, and being the right person. The word "right" may not be the "right" choice, but hopefully you can sense what I am getting at. Sometimes words just don't cut it. They can only point toward it.

The jeans popped into my head because it is kind of a similar feeling. It 'feels' right when you find the perfect pair of jeans for you. So much so that you reach a point where you forget about the jeans all together. There is no difference between them and you. They don't feel foreign or "not me." There is a connection or a becoming one with them. I think the same thing happens when we find ourselves and our purpose in life. There is a connection made not only between ourselves and what we do best, but there is a connection or a oneness formed with all of humanity and even all of the universe. There is no longer a foreign or alien feeling of separation between who we are and what we do or between who we are and those we serve.

Psychology and Philosophy, as well as most religions, can agree that there is a quest within the human mind/heart to return to the oneness of all or to become whole. According to psychology, we 'separate' ourselves mentally from the 'other' at young age, and then we spend the rest of our lives trying to reconnect. So what are those things that stand in our way of doing so? The stories we tell ourselves, the pressures we put on ourselves, our biology, our own primitive senses, etc. The list is long, but the source of them all is only ourselves.

What is to be done then? Do we keep on searching for the perfect pair of jeans? Trying on every pair that catches our interest? Disgustingly discarding them into a pile for the poor overworked sales people to take away back to their respective racks? Trying to find the ones that are the real deal? Is it really a quest for the perfect jeans or is it quest for fitting ourselves comfortably back into our human family?

Interesting to consider.