The Tilt Of Our World View...
Language
informs our thinking, not the other way around. Once that notion has settled
in, I propose we take a hard look at the language that we use to often describe
life. I, for one, have been inundated with messages of life’s “journey”. Why do
we conceptualize life as a road?
As long drive, with stops- marriage, baby, promotion, house- along the
way like a cross-country trip? I think it is possibly the biggest fallacy of
our time. The message is subtle, but the cumulative effect is seen in our every
action. We are always striving toward some unknown destination. We see
ourselves as either moving forward, or backward. We will either “make it” or
not. Since I can remember, I have been taught that life is a linear event, but
the more I experience life on my own, I see the fault in that assumption. Life
is circular.
Life is
a cycle of endless waves of prosperity and suffering, of light and dark, of
hope and disillusionment. Life is continual, complex, and multidirectional, and
there is no simple notion of forward and backward to monitor our progress. We
live the illusion that we are always moving forward on our life path, when in
reality the forward motion is a ruse; much like running on a treadmill. I
believe that we learn the same lessons over and over, but gain new complexity
each time.
Much
like a pendulum that swings from one extreme to the other, we are constantly on
the ride of life, trying to balance the two polarities in all things: Justice
and Mercy. Any decision we make tries to balance these two concepts: Justice
taking the side of the larger idealistic worldview, and Mercy favoring the
individual’s motivations. Our free will come in to bridge these two concepts,
and like the Mad Hatter we run back and forth on this bridge carrying the weight
of justification between the two polarities, trying to find the balance:
Disciple vs. Enjoyment; Self Love vs. Universal Love; Me vs. You.
We do
not gain happiness from moving forward and reaching a goal. We gain happiness
in the moments when everything is in its right place and for a second we have
stopped running back and forth. The times we are doing what we really love, and
there is a calm within us, because for a second, we do not want anything more
than to be where we are. We are not grasping, nor are we evading. We do not
realize the difference between doing what we love, and working hard so that we
may reach happiness one day in the future. Happiness is like a butterfly: try
to keep it in a glass jar, and it will perish. But fall asleep in the garden
and you will wake up to butterflies flying all around.
“Every moment
is a lifetime in miniature”. If right now you are not living life how you want,
then soon you will find that it has been the case for years, or even decades. We
mistakenly chase life, never realizing that our destiny is with us all the time
in the form of our inherent talents and inclinations, and by constantly moving
we are running away from our best life. The moment when we can erode our ego
and our belief about what we should be doing, and really give in to who we are,
is the moment where true brilliance of our uniqueness surfaces.
Success does
not bring happiness; doing what you love brings happiness. And doing what you
love will bring the sweetest success as you tap into an infinite source of motivation.
It takes conviction to stand up against the people that are endlessly running
toward and away. To refuse to succumb to the notion that your function is only
to be productive, to work and not play, and that there is not enough so you
must grasp, and hoard, and collect; that you must capture a butterfly, and hold
on to it until it dies, and then go and capture one more. Instead find the
thing that you could do for hours without getting tired, and do it! That is
your destiny, waiting patiently for you to slow down and give it the time of
day.
Inspiration for this post:
Steve Jobs: How to live before you die
Martha Beck: Attachment and Anxiety
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