<\/p>\n
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So what do you want for Christmas?<\/span><\/p>\n I have been asked this odd question many times this holiday season.\u00a0 <\/span>I say the question is odd because, after all, I want everything.\u00a0 <\/span>I mean, I\u2019m only human, so of course I want everything I can get.<\/span><\/p>\n But to paraphrase my non-human uncle, Mr. Spock, I have found that wanting & getting are two very different things.\u00a0 <\/span>The wanting is what gets us up in the morning, what drives us onward, what keeps us going.\u00a0 <\/span>But the getting is what weighs us down, what holds us back, & eventually what buries us in accumulated debris.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s the time of year when clever marketers manipulate our minds with a cruel vengeance, making us want & want & want without regard to the consequences of our getting.\u00a0 <\/span>They make us feel imperfect, inadequate, inferior, & then they assure us all will be well if only we get this thing or that thing or everything.\u00a0 <\/span>But when can we ever be happy in such a world?\u00a0 <\/span>We can\u2019t be happy when we\u2019re made sick with wanting, & we can\u2019t be happy when we\u2019re made sick by the deep piles of old, worn-out, busted & boring stuff we were lucky to get not so long ago.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m not a clever marketer, but let me try very hard to manipulate you into desperately wanting just one more thing.\u00a0 <\/span>You know what you simply must, must, must<\/em> have in order to be happy? \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n Whoever you are, wherever you are, here is my gift to you this holiday season:\u00a0 <\/span>you are perfect.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em> <\/span>You are exactly as you should be. You need absolutely nothing to fulfill your purpose on this planet.\u00a0 <\/span>You were born naked & naked you shall return to the earth.\u00a0 <\/span>So before you get suckered in to wanting anything else, why not turn out the lights, get naked, dance in the dark, & bask in a few blissful moments of not wanting anything at all?<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019ll be the best gift you ever got.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So what do you want for Christmas? I have been asked this odd question many times this holiday season.\u00a0 I say the question is odd because, after all, I want everything.\u00a0 I mean, I\u2019m only human, so of course I want everything I can get. But to paraphrase my non-human uncle, Mr. Spock, I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kblaugheed.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}