This blog started as a series of social media posts, where I was writing clarifications to address common misunderstandings about famous quotes around ‘happiness’ or ‘peace.’ Essentially the point was to review common memes like books, or movies; both for quality, and to ensure that those that liked the meme were drawing the most from them.
Eventually I started getting questions that people wanted specific answers to, so at the start of this second year I did a series of question-and-answer posts. Despite being happy with those, I started to sense a level of resistance in myself. I would still see people misinterpreting memes, and that led me to want to share answers that were being impeded by answering the specific questions. Feeling that sort of resistance inside ourselves is an important aspect of being aware.
When I checked in with myself, I realized I wanted to get back to reviewing and expanding on the memes. Yet, when I started contemplating the change, I could again feel resistance within myself. When I looked at it closely, I realized that I did want to switch the writing now, half way through the year. The resistance was coming from the part of me that wanted to ‘finish the year.’
I’m sure many of you can relate. I know clients who feel guilty if they quit a book half way through, or they won’t drop out of classes they are sure don’t suit them. Many people will sit through a movie at the theatre out a fear of what others might think if they leave. Each of these fears steals our freedom.
Whether or not the Earth had made it all the way around the sun has nothing to do with me changing what I write. But I can think it does. And being a kid who was taught to define ranges for goals, there is a part of me that remembers my original plan, and so my ego tries to argue that I’m not being a good person if I don’t do a full year of questions. But that’s just my ego. If I let it run my life my life would be tiny.
This work is my life. I put a lot into this blog. This is how I care for all of you. But there’s a couple dates on a tombstone with a dash in between. That dash is our life. I do not want to spend that tiny little dash writing a blog that feels wrong to me just because I experimented with the Dear Abbey-esque format in response to a request to answer specific questions. Thoughts are not things. I cannot be jailed by barriers I volunteer to create in my imagination.
Fortunately for my brain, it is kind of convenient that we’re exactly half way through the year, and the July 1st holiday was a re-blog, so that allows me to have this revelation and then start the second half of the year by returning to last year’s format. I have a few blogs done that I’ll have to rewrite to some degree, and of course I will continue to address concerns that are sent to me. But for the remainder of this year and for the foreseeable future, I will be shifting the blog back to its original format.
Freedom is found in realizing our true selves by being free of the ideas that shackle others to ideas they are no longer loyal to. People stay in relationships that have ended for that reason. They continue to get degrees in school they don’t care about, or they work at jobs with no joy. We must remember, our lives are ours.
Forget conformity. Forget impressing others. There is no one we’re supposed to be. There are merely actions and the consequences of them. The human beings we deal with with be inconsistent, crazy, wonderful and absolutely worthy of our love.
Forget trying to impress others and just be your most compassionate, curious, engaged and loveable self, and then let nature take care of the rest. I know that’s what I’m going to do with my life and with the blog. Enjoy!
peace. s
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.
