…That I should avoid the opinion of myself?
Not an easy task when one is their own worst critic.
I heard someone speak the other night who exuded peace and the wisdom of experience. Most of the time I feel I could be that sort of person. God knows I have had loads of experience, many a lesson and countless mistakes. My experiences have been written, mentally noted, taught, lost, found, ignored, unlearned and relearned. Each day I wake up to a clean slate and hope that the path that I walk during the course of my day will be one that sparks the results of the lessons that I have learned in order to best proceed in positive directions. Although there are always new lessons to be learned… it is easier to learn them if you aren’t spending the day relearning the old ones over and over and over.
But why wouldn’t I want to have an opinion of myself? Isn’t that healthy to some degree? Self-identity and awareness is helpful to evaluate, change and grow into a better human being amongst human beings. My opinion of who I am could help me to become a happier and well-rounded soul who expends his time on the planet with good relationships and, ultimately a better opinion of who I am.
Esteem is good.
The opinion I should avoid, I have been told, is of the world around me and me in it. All those things that are making me feel less than or afraid of. Work, relationships, money, love…. any of or all in combination provide a human being with all amount of reasons to build opinion of situation and create scenarios based on what is unknown.
Or is that just me?
2009 has been an interesting year of unknowns in central parts of my life. Change is vital and exhilarating… and without a doubt I thrive upon it…. but when change is in process of transition and unknowns it can be somewhat of a stressful way to live. Long arduous periods of wondering if and when a shoe is going to drop is not conducive to the happy, comfortable world that I would prefer to live in. But the fact of the matter is that the challenges…. and unfortunately the unknowns are more than likely the most character building of the situations that life can provide. How we “react”… how we don’t react… how we behave… how we learn patience… is all part of the lesson of both living in the moments AND learning the lessons that life provides.
But that isn’t always very easy.
For me… and I would suspect many others, the practice of NOT having an opinion on my life is a solid shield of protection for it. If I am not projecting myself into the future creating unknowns (which, in my case are usually in negatives of doom, gloom and failure) I am able to fully focus on the place that I am, the person I need to be and the situations in front of me. How often am I not fully functional in the now simply because I am overwhelmed by things that are not necessarily going to exist in my future?
“What if” is one of the most dangerous ways to start a sentence… whether out loud or within my head.
The practice I will try to commit to within my own life is to arrest the opinions of how things will be. I don’t know those answers. I trust my intuition but even that can only be used to project myself into places that are safe. I am not going to walk a path that is without problems or potholes…. nobody is able to live such a life. But I can learn to truly master the classroom of living by taking in the lesson as it is being taught… and not guessing what that lesson might be days, weeks or even months in the future.
Today… right now… I am healthy, happy, and mentally equipped to be at one with the world I am a part of. That is a piece of the wisdom others have taught me and I can help others to learn.
Be Happy. Be Well. Be.