[image: furthermore.equinox.com]

Hedonic Treadmills

False hopes are like
Whispers of bad faith that come to us
From a place where deeds and our potential
Become drowned and lost from reality;
They arise from fears
That we are not good enough
When our spiritual strength falters
Our resolve is caught off guard
And we fall from the
Treadmill of life.

Desire has no rest
It thrives in abundance denial
And arrives when least we expect it
Especially on life’s plateau
Where serenity is the norm
And we have little to fall back on
But purpose and persistence
And love.

Time is the great healer
But it too has its own limitations
For out there in the distance or
Even in the next step
It too can trip us up
And disrupt what we always
Thought was
The endless wheel of life.

In war and peace
We speak of end games
And exit strategies while
In the midst of shock and awe
But the wheel turns
Then as now
And grants us no favors.

We can measure life in heartbeats
Or in days of wine and roses
Or in distances run
We can forecast our happiness
But never predict when
Not next year
Not tomorrow
Only now.