Meditation and the Hamster Wheel of Life

What does meditation have to do with hamstermake the world a better place until after we do
wheels?something else to make money.
Quite a bit."You load sixteen tons. What do you get?
Have you ever noticed that you keep solvingAnother day older and deeper in debt."
problems? And you keep winding up with new"Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go.
ones?I owe my soul to the company store."
Somehow you don't quite get what you-- Tennessee Ernie Ford
expected. You study for years to get a newThis hamster wheel really begins in our own
career. Then that new career doesn't turn out asminds. We have some problem. We try to figure
you had expected.it out. We try to know how to handle the
Welcome to the hamster wheel of Life. This isproblem.
the endless struggle that is part of the duality inWhen we don't solve the problem, we beat
which we live. (I'm right, they're wrong. I'm good,ourselves up for not solving the problem.
they're bad.)Things get worse. We keep spinning.
We seem to spend our lives in endless strugglesThis is the mental version of the hamster wheel
doing things we don't like doing. Supposedly, onceof life.
we accomplish some project, we'll finally really getThe result of all this is endless churning. We get
to do what we like. Or we'll finally have enoughmore and more into our heads.
money to do something worthwhile.How do you find peace?
Perhaps we feel that we won't have time toYou could meditate every day.