Certainly should sound familiar. I know I'm terribly guilty of it as we all are. Certainly the implications of the statement go as far as all financial distress, but my anthology hopefully will stretch the use of this term. Particularly because I hadn't the word the describe this malicious frenzy which has us plagued with longevity to a sudden death it seems.
To explain what I mean; there was once and old man who huddled every morning under his cardboard shelter, away from the crowds in a shadow shrouded corner. His life used to be once a simple kind - pay as you go plan, one step at a time seemed effortless and and unaccounted for. Like all of us born into a world pregnant with possibilty, he now finds himself now lost and confused with his dire predicament, unable to muster the confidence and willingness to pay for what he had owed to life, even if he had it. His body now cold and fragile, his energy is waisted on a fortune now spent to the world he owes with none of it owed back to his of what he owed. A confusing predicament in itself, for where did he benefit from it?
Who has the money we owe? Is there some limit to the flow of whatever it is we're exchanging? How is it we're struggling to find ground on a endless field of possibilities, in a field as wide as this earth? How many plagued beliefs do we have that hold false have kept us stuck? These are all the questions we could easily conjure up from the anxieties pressed on our minds.
Because what our senses tell us seem to have a limit to tolerance, we assume that the juice has all been sapped from the tree. I have news that the seasons will change, and are readily available for harvest when one is able to reap the realization of a field not yet threshed. The world we live in is not a world of limit. There is a limit to what we see (proven my the analogy of an iceberg) but a world no yet seen that we cannot yet harvest. Sometimes we just need to realize the season for one harvest is over and it is time to start over again. You cannot harvest the same field annually - its needs its break, or "sabbatical" in jewish terms. We too need to start a new harvest when one is finished.
All changes in time. One segment leads to another, and at the end of each is like changing lives - living another ones job and responsibilities. This is important to realize so that resistance is minimal when the tides change. Just retreat to higher ground. There is always an abundance - its important to realize there is no limit to all space, and time.
Life is a burden because we created this suffering out of our desperation to cling to the moments and things we hold to with our identity. If we hadn't these attachments, life would pass as easy as it came. Remember the feeling of having a butt-load of homework to do after the end of the day? Our focus is temporarily suspended on paradise while obligation still holds on the other side of reality. This is really the concept in a nutshell; to be there in body, but mind placed ahead of its evolution, so there is a disconnect between you and it. There is a contradiction that grows greater over time. Decay sets in on the things left undone and untended for as the body withers and passes away, and we inherit a new body out of necessity as the old dies. This is where our "drug-like" addictions to our earthly habits keep us suspended from reality as repetition sets a constant standard of escape. The only way to cancel out anything is meet it head on with no assists and process what shift in consciousness needs to be done so the pain will subside and illness will not set in.
Life has placed upon us a wager. Karma translated is actually "action". We cannot run from ourselves. What we do to another is what we receive in return. Our duty is cleanup. Realizing that we share these grounds will only accelerate our progression as a human race, for what we clean up for anothers sake places us in the act of atonement - the one duty we were given. Love, wisdom and unity.
The old man I once spoke about - the story hadn't ended. The story will end though when someone will come to help him realize his potential as a part in this unity about to take place. When he realizes this hope from his alienated self, he will come to not fear himself or the world around him for he will know it all. He will continue where he left off; at the beginning.
"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward."
-- Søren Aaby Kierkegaard
