Continuing; & a Parallel Discovered

Continuing the awareness of the "inner" vs "outer" world distraction conversation, I had a strange connection this morning to how as CO's we focus on the external world to blame our inner feelings and identity, as though we had no control, and now I compared that avoidance of focus on the inside to the religious world, where some religious teachings talk about the "world after this one" being more "important", i.e. being "better", than this one in the same way CO's focus on avoiding reality in favor of an imaginary fantasy world being "better" and more ideal than the one we have now and are experiencing, "In The Now" moment. Odd, don't you think? I mean my ability to draw such a comparison?
I feel like we tend to remember the past for its painful experiences so we do not repeat the pain by avoiding it in the future. Here's the thing though: by focusing on remembering what to avoid, that is what we attract! Right? We scan the horizon for any little sign of pain to avoid and we find all sorts of "possibilities", because of the power of our imagination, and sure enough we find things to avoid that may be Painful. The opposite attraction is to not hold on to the past, or avoid any future, at all. To make painful feelings tolerable instead of expecting "the ideal" life only.
There is a balance to the Universe, and it has two poles, or at least a wave function of hills and valleys. It is the habit of judging one pole, the hill, being "better" than the other, the valley, as far as being important in life instead of accepting both as positive experiences of living itself. WE make it difficult by putting conditions on our happiness based on external experiences, whereas the truth is we experience life only inside, in our minds and by what we choose to focus our attention on: judgments. "Letting go" is stopping the judging as better or worse. Life is just a continuous series of experiences and feelings, nothing more. We are "born" by going into the movie theater to see a movie for two hours or so, and when it's over, it's over. No one scene is more important than the other in the story. we don't stop the projector on one frame, it continues to the end of the story and is part of that story's plot. It may not be a series of continuous "good" scenes or not, and it is usually not. We "let each scene go" for the next; maybe we can learn to do that to life too. The "movie" in the theater is not the most important event in our lives, the scenes are not that important once the movie is over. Correct? So it is with life.  
My question as a CO is: "Why waste enjoying ALL the feeling experiences of this life by concocting an imaginary life after this one? Why judge the life we have now as being good or bad ONLY, based on our past and and a future that is impossible to predict or control? The only control we really have is over our minds and how we choose to experience the rest of the life we are living now one day at a time, without judging it, or trying to control it by making it something that it is not? Why not accept ourselves as we are instead of avoiding ourselves for a life we don't have and can't have? The ONLY life we can live in is the one we're given right now, as you are reading this. That's it. Accept reality as it is instead of rejecting it for what it isn't. Do we all accept our friends here for who they are. Or do we accept them only for who we judge we wish they would be to make us happy? So why not accept our life as it is instead of the one we wish we could have and isn't? Reality IS! The life we have IS perfect, except for our habit of judging it for what it's not. And the more we focus on what it's not, the more we attract the unhappiness, and miss seeing  what is there right in front of our face, to experience, to enjoy, no matter what.
Gratitude, for being given THIS life, as it is, unconditionally, is the way to go, I'm teaching myself. [And it AIN'T that easy yet to do, I assure you!] We have (I HAVE) absolutely no control over anything else except what and how I choose to control my mind to use it too enjoy life, which is reality. Keep letting go of conditions for enjoying life as it is, no matter what happens. I said it before: once we die, nothing, NOTHING!, we do not like about this life will matter! The gift is in being given ANY life to live. The "whah, whah, whah" we cry like a baby (okay, maybe it's just me), for not getting what we want instead of what are actually getting, is the "problem" The judging as though there is something better than accepting life as it is the habit we learned as children; where EVERYTHING needs to be BETTER. Everything needs to be improved and better than it is, or was the last time. Life is fine if I quit resisting it, fearing it will not be the life I prefer instead of the life I've had, have, and will continue to have by living each moment in the NOW.
Fearing keeps me constantly focusing on remembering past pains and focusing on future pains to avoid, and not on happiness that is there if I am willing to look for it and use it. I am still attracting the pains I don't want because that's what my "roommate-mind" was instructed to do for me: "give me a life without any pain at all. The judgment to let go of is "any pain at all is too painful to bare". "If I feel any pain at all, I've done something wrong" is the belief and feeling connection to change, "I was't good enough to avoid the pain." That's the addiction, to the belief that a painless life is expected or even possible. It's not. Accept the pain as it happens, and let it go. Do not hold on to it, anymore than you can hold on the the breath you just took while reading this line. The new trick is to make painful feelings acceptable, as a natural part of life. Painful feelings are not a sign of failure, a failure to control the impossible. The only "thing" we can learn to do is control our attention, we are not victims of our mind. We can learn mindfulness, we can teach ourselves differently. We are not dependent on the external would, EVER, because we have absolutely no control of it being "good' or "bad". Life is not good or bad in and of itself, it is only our judgment of those external events that make the good or bad, painful or pleasurable. Stop the "conditions for happiness", the need to control what cannot be controlled, and life can be accepted as it is as happy, unvarnished, as just another event; unimportant after we die.
That's my story for today, and I'm sticking to it.
Rich