07.05 E&M 60 mins. I began a letter to Francis. I wrote down everything I learnt last week and was taken aback by the comprehensive list I drew up:
- Talk about my issues and see how the simple act of verbalising can release so much as well as allowing me to check my assumptions about myself, about others and about life.
- How much resentment I actually have about life and the harm it causes.
- How attached I am to my negativity because I think I am funny and entertaining with it.
- How beneficial, healthy and enriching it is to encourage and empower others.
- How much different it is to be positive – it is an attractive and appealing alternative to negativity and it is something I want to cultivate in myself.
- How much better off I am living in the moment, the here and now, the real world. Rather than inhabit my fantasy of how I think the world should be and get frustrated and annoyed at what I have been given, I can accept reality, live it fully and benefit hugely from everything around me.
- How much better off I am when I take responsibility for myself instead of hiding behind the moaning and complaining
- I lead a privileged life – I have a great deal to be positive about.
Add to that the learnings from the previous week – that I need to be straight with people (about what I want) instead of being manipulative – and it has been quite a fortnight.
It all seems so simple and common sense that you’d think the above points should be standard directives for life, given to everyone as early as possible. But that’s the whole issue in a nutshell. Most people don’t have such clarity in their lives and they spend their entire existence in search of some sort of fulfilment. Unfortunately, society has ready-made fulfilment all wrapped up in possessions and wealth, which is what we all strive for, convinced it is what we need for happiness.
So, when we have children ourselves, we have nothing different to pass on to them than what our parents and society gave us. Nobody is to blame. That’s just the way it is. Each individual, however, has the option to go their own way and try to find fulfilment on their own path. And this is the best part because there are people out there who can help us find what we are looking for (thank God). One of the most encouraging aspects of our journeys is that the more we follow our path, the more we attract the right people.
It has occurred to me recently just how much I have copied people around me. At college I copied people I thought seemed happy and content because – and it’s only now that I realise this – I was clearly not happy with what I had been given and I was looking for the truth about it all; looking for the way I was always supposed to live my life. That is why I now live my life with more purpose: because I have found what I have been looking for all these years. And the paradox is that, having found what I’ve been looking for, the search now begins in earnest.