Some time ago, somewhere in a long-forgotten note book, out of pure exasperation I scribbled down the phrase “Life is a constant struggle”.

This was how I felt at the time. The feeling was a constant presence of nervous anticipation that I lived with for many years.

Sometimes I still feel this way, but there is no doubt in me that, since then, I’ve been moving closer and closer to what can be described as ‘becoming one with God’.

It’s a see-saw journey. Some days I feel incredible peace. Other days I am completely demotivated and terribly irritated with life.

I feel much better when I do the things that I know builds and maintains that peace. Things like meditation, Yoga, self examination, practising honesty and admitting my faults.

But sitting down (or getting up) and actually doing those things takes some effort, whether physical or mental. And it’s when I’m faced with that effort that I sometimes begin to struggle and feel demotivated and irritated.

Almost as if there’s a part of me that, like a spoilt child, expects everything to be done and served on a silver platter.

That’s the part of me that feels resentment, jealousy, irritation, anger, attachment, lust, greed and all the other fear based emotions.

That part of me is a mental illness. It’s a part of me that I must work to dissolve if I want lasting peace. But I must accept that the work to dissolve that part of myself may never end. I might one day reach the end of my life having only arrested the mental illness, but not dissolved it completely.

This mental illness may very well forever be a part of me.

But I work to arrest or dissolve it regardless.

Because life does not have to be a struggle. I now know that. Life can be experienced in peace, even when circumstances aren’t peaceful. I’ve experienced that peace and that is how I want to live.

My life is beautiful. I live the life I have always dreamt of. I live a life of freedom and adventure. I earn a living doing what I love. I am free to wake up every day and practice a way of life that brings me closer to God, the great spirit, the universal field, the source, the consciousness of the cosmos.

Life really is a gift.

It’s our mental illness that behaves otherwise and turns life into a struggle. To feed itself and propagate itself, like a virus using the energy of it’s host, energy that is generated through struggle and expressed by my fear based emotions.

It’s us. We turn life into a struggle.

Unaware that what we’re actually doing is reinforcing the mental illness we all share. An illness that, like any virus, wants to survive and will do what it must.

It’s our responsibility to work on ourselves to dissolve that illness within ourselves.

There’s no need to preach or prance.

The most effective way of eradicating the illness is to start right there where it lives. Within oneself.