One of the most maddening experiences in life is trying to watch TV when somebody else has the remote. You just start to focus on a channel and “BAM,” you’re looking at something different. Focus again, “BAM,” away we go to another show.
It feels unpredictable . . . aimless . . . infuriating. . .
Life can often feel the same way sometimes. We think we’re doing okay. We think we’re successful. We think we can focus on this path and we’ll just be happy and “BAM,” something or somebody makes us doubt what we think we know, and maybe even who we think we are and can be.
What’s going on? How did this happen? How do we fix it?
When the “channel” in our life seems to be changing constantly, and we can’t put things in focus, sometimes what we’re struggling with is what is known as a sense of “congruence.”
In other words, what we’re feeling and looking at on the outside isn’t in sync with who we believe we are and should be on the inside. It’s as if something outside of us has control of our own personal internal remote, our sense of our self and who we are, and keeps shifting it without our say so.
Ask these 2 questions if the channels start spinning. Continue reading
Mark Twain once wrote, “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, but its mastery.” All of us strive to act with courage, with honor, and with integrity. Yet we often judge ourselves harshly for those moments when we needed courage and found it lacking.
In 219 B.C.E. the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, confronted a daunting task. He had been ordered to lead his army into Italy to attack Rome. The only way to achieve surprise and do so quickly was to cross the Alps. No army had done that before.
Relationships are the foundation of our lives. We have relationships with other people, with organizations and with ourselves. Some we choose, others were chosen for us. We can be happy with the ones we have, or want new and better ones.
In order to change something in your life, you often have to come to grips with how it got there. It can be helpful to remember that as human beings, we are always trying to find the meaning of what happens in our lives, and why. We are “meaning creating” beings. The more we understand how we create meaning, how we identify what is important to us and why, the more we can understand the story of our own life (and the story of other people’s lives, as well).
The winning runner who crosses the finish line first in a footrace is referred to as “hitting the tape.” Life can feel like a footrace at times, too. We are often trying our hardest to go farther and faster. We have our goals and, as in a footrace, that is the finish line we seek; the “tape” we’re trying to hit. Success and failure are measured by whether or not we hit the tape.
“Without consciousness, there can be no choice.”