Why are you so timid about what you love? Why are you so dedicated to things others care about? Why would you do things for money when money can only buy things and events, but not experiences?
Why do you spend more time deciding what to do with your time in the outside world when you should be spending more time choosing what to do within your consciousness? So long as you are more interested in what goes on outside of you than inside of you, you will suffer much more than necessary because—despite all appearances—your life is actually an internal experience. This is the quantum leap you must make: you are not a person doing things. Your life is not what you do. You are not a Human Doing, you are a Human Being.
Two men can dig a ditch. One can spend that time thinking about a woman he loves, and the other can be in a jealous rage, and the ditch will have had nothing to do with either. And those personal experiences will be so powerful, one man will return home to make love and the other will return home to create an angry, stressful, emotionally overwrought experience whether his wife cheated in the physical world or not.
It simply doesn’t matter what happens, the focusing of your consciousness will create and manifest your individual experience regardless, and loving thoughts are what erase the separation from one thinker and another. Loving thoughts are what create unity. So why do you make yourself so separate with your thinking about the outside world? Why are you more worried about other people’s judgmental thoughts than you are about your own actual experience?
You occupy a critical part of the universe. You are the only person with your preferences. In fact, those preferences are the only thing that distinguish you from other beings. So far from aligning your preferences with others—which is what we do to have our egos fit in when we’re young—you must instead align your life with your own preferences. Can you see? You’re looking for your path through life, and yet you use your thoughts to argue the validity of your preferences.
You want to leave a relationship but you don’t because you care about the other person’s feelings more than your own. You’ve been taught that you are a good person if you put others above yourself. You feel that you should follow their preferences rather than your own.
This means that if your society says don’t be a quitter, that means you should keep reading things you don’t enjoy; that because your society says material wealth is success., we should keep working at unhealthy jobs just because they pay great money; or that it’s right to spend time with people you’re related to even if you don’t enjoy their company. Does that sound like freedom? Does that sound like a life well lived? Sorry. That’s the sort of life people feel was a giant waste of an opportunity.
Life is like a huge field filled with different kinds of foods and sights and smells. You’re not supposed to come to this field and then go straight to a desk to be told by others what route you’re supposed to take through the field, or which flowers to smell, what things to look at or for how long. Nor should you ask about what you should drink or what you should eat. The field isn’t an obligation. It’s an opportunity.
You’re supposed to dance through the field with joy and acceptance as your guide. And if you do that, you may be seen as irresponsible to the people waiting patiently in line at the desk, but the point is you will be free. And even more importantly, it will allow you to bond with other people who are free. And that will be easy, because you will encounter them doing what they love. And if you love that too, then you’re already connected even before you’ve met.
Stop living for other people. There’s nothing wrong with having fun. This is your life. It’s time to start living like it actually belongs to you. Look at your life and figure out what’s easy to enjoy in a deep and profound sense.
You’re not looking for earthly pleasures, you’re looking for the fulfilment of your soul. Because that is the only real responsibility you have, and yet it is the one you show the least respect. Change that. Value fun. It’s not irresponsible. It’s exactly the opposite. It is the only kind of responsibility that matters. The only question is, are you prepared to be responsible for your own life experience?
Don’t look for happiness because you’ve checked off all the boxes. Create happiness by stepping outside of them into a whole new way of living. If you do that, who knows, maybe we’ll bump into each other out there in that beautiful field called life.
peace. s
Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.
