The table leg. That’s what started this whole train of thought.

     My writing table leans against the wall, supported in front by two legs that stick out into the room. I’ve tripped over them more than once. Cords get caught behind them, they get in the way of everything and are generally a nuisance. This morning I looked down at one of the offenders. “I was going to fix that. Why not today?”

     Being a Bayard (ask any Bayard), the way to go about it is to write and publish a dissertation on the Art of Fixing Table Legs. Then I master every trade, skill, or technique that might ever be involved in any project remotely related to the fixing of table legs.

     Next I gather materials, tools, and anything else I might possibly need to fix any table leg that now exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist. Only then can I correctly and adequately fix a table leg. Repairing a broken shoelace might take me years.

     But a sudden insight flashed. The Great Table Leg Conundrum had a simple, elegant, and attractive solution:

     Let. It. Be.

     It’s perfect just as it is. The problem isn’t the table leg. It’s my monkey-mind constantly busying itself with changing what it thinks isn’t right. Trying to fix what ain’t broke. Worrying to death anything that isn’t perfectly perfect.

     I just won’t put cords behind the table legs, I thought. And I can easily learn to step around them. They do support my drawing table admirably. What’s the problem?

     A perfectly imperfect world!

     The insight spread deeper than that. I realized how much precious time I spend trying to change things. How I see everything as imperfect. How I can’t even enjoy sitting in the peaceful garden without focussing on the weeds which need pulling, the mulch that isn’t there, the spent flowers I need to deadhead ~ whatever infinitesimal thing isn’t Just Exactly So.

     I start looking around with these fresh new eyes at all that I have been missing in this narrow corridor of vision ~ the native beauty and “rightness” of everything around me.

     The world that is daily born in the early eastern light. The shimmering morning leaves coming into being, just where we remember them. The birds fluttering through the branches in dawn’s delirium as if everything was in its perfect place and time.

     And high above it all, the grand blue hat of sky that fits so perfectly atop its world, with cottony cumulus and willowy cirrus drifting along on their usual paths in their usual way.

     This view of the world feels so basic, so real, so obvious that I wonder why I keep missing it. Why the urge to improve, revise, redo, amend, develop, so blinds me to the world’s pearly presence. Why it leads me further and further from the enjoyment of what is already here.

     We do this to ourselves, as well as to the world around us. Living as if we’re not enough, not right, not acceptable. Deficient, inadequate in some way. Too skinny or not skinny enough. Too ditsy or too serious, Too loud or too quiet. Too big or too small. Too frivolous or too serious. Too much of this and too little of that. Morally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in all other ways just plain wrong.

     This is a destructive force. Applied to the world, in the way that our species have been doing for so long, it is deeply corrosive to the spirit. Paving paradise, then too late realizing there’s no place left to which to drive.

     As I get up from the writing desk, I notice the vastness of space around the table leg. I easily step around it. I’ll not change it. Not now. Not ever.

     Oh, I may fix things in the future. Sure, I’ll make changes in my world, as I can and as I see fit. But right now I’m going to step out to the garden. I’m going to sit on the bench and rest my eyes upon the glorious colors and patterns and flitting birds and winging bugs and all the dancing glories of the world as it is.

     And just be.