It’s Christmas Eve. Strong Southern wind… unusual noises… and bouts of wanting to weep. WTF? There is nothing wrong with my life, I am not connected to anyone in particular, and yet.
I muscletest if it is the Dark Side emotion transmission, and yes, it is…
Feelings come from who knows where, and yet, YOU are basing all your decisions on feelings. How utterly misguided is that?
If the feeling were: you can do it, you’d jump into an empty pool and break your neck… you and your teenagers have done that driving too fast… haven’t you? Or trying drugs saying: I am stronger than that… and get hooked. Or “one won’t hurt” of potato chips… and end up eating the whole bag.
Feelings are unreliable guidance… the source of feelings is not you, not something that even knows about you… it is outside of you.
Many of you are waiting to feel confident to do anything requiring action. Or waiting for the fear to go away…
So why waiting to feel confident is putting your life, your future, your fortune into the hand of a liar?
It all boils down to the question of where are you looking for guidance: in the misty amorphous world of feelings or in reality.
Before you can do anything different, before you can change anything, before you can hope for any life full of meaning and significance, you need to tell the truth:
You have been looking and finding guidance in feelings.
What has it bought you?
You have been an underachiever
Probably an addict… addicted to some escape. TV, porn, substances, work, family, sex, being a seeker of truth, entertainment, guru teachings, maybe even reading… learning stuff, mind stuff… but NO action.
Even the best of you gets taken out by even the suggestion that there is something wrong with you.
You are postponing life to live it when it is all sunny, and the temperature is perfect, and you are perfect… and then you die.
I remember when I was first introduced to the idea that you are dead…
It was in an early Forum, now called Landmark Education Forum, and the guy, normal looking, was told by the leader that he was dead… And he answered: I know.
It was jarring for me… because my whole concept of dead was really dead… lifeless… But then I realized that you can be lifeless if you are not in action. If you have given up. If you are waiting, and waiting… and waiting.
I remember when I first saw the play “Waiting for Godot” a French nihilist play… I could not connect to the endless talking about what it will be like when Godot comes…
Godot may be a play on the word god… but it doesn’t matter. Because, the writer saw that the world was going to crap… people are not doing anything constructive, not doing anything with their lives because they are waiting.
For what? For the right time. For the right feeling. For the right opportunity… but here is the kicker: if you lived your life waiting, then you are unprepared for opportunities.
One of my students, 50 years old, has put off living all these years. Now she is 50 years old, has lofty ideas for how to contribute… but she has no skills, because she has used her life not for what could matter, but to make it from one day to the other.
Let me contrast her with another of my students, who in his short life, he is around 30, and has created more skills than he needs… So when I suggested he starts a business, he could start right away, without having to learn, practice, develop any skills.
You see, that this is the issue with dead. When you are waiting for the right anything… when it comes, you are not ready, you cannot be ready.
Somehow culture took over your life, and YOU are not directing it.
Is there a capacity that is turned off?
Surprisingly it is generosity. Why? Because generosity puts you into the giving and receiving energies of life…
What you don’t know is when you take yourself out of Life, whatever you call it, it is stingy. It is all about you. It is all about Death. It is Dark Side.
Being willing to return to life is an act of generosity.
And generosity is a capacity. It is being able to pry open the tightly closed lid of the box you live in… Ability. Needs to be used… or it closes again.
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P.S: I just realized something: when you consider the floating, visiting feelings as yours, justified, and real, you turn that feeling into being… Feeling afraid is not the same as being a scaredy kitten… Feeling afraid is temporary… But being a scared kitten will paint you into the corner real fast.
