Looking inward is not easy, it takes real strength. Why do we need strength? Because we may not like what we find. So many of us avoid our personal truth because it is so much easier than the alternative. We have so many quick fixes being sold and so many alternatives to “Why?” that do not involve ourselves. There are so many fabricated realities to avoid the truth because so many of us do not have the strength to be honest with ourselves.
Satisfaction comes from within. Nothing we consume will ever replace the void created by self doubt or a lack of self love. We live in a consumer society because we have been taught to live according to someone else’s standards, to subscribe to someone else’s values, to define success with the ideas of another… Why look within when you can find everything you need to justify anything in the world around us? It is the great distraction used to control us.
The answers are within us. Why are we who we are today is due to our responses to the world around us, not due to the world around us. If we do not accept this, we give up control of our lives. Nothing has control over you, all the choices being made are being made by you. If you allow someone to control you, that is a choice. If you blame the world for your current state of being, you made a choice. Even if there is a gun to your head, you still have a choice. The choices may not be pretty but they are all yours to make.
Only thru full acceptance of our ability to choose, do we fully know freedom. With this freedom comes responsibility. For me, that responsibility is to make choices that benefit not just myself, but people in general. The other responsibility is to take care of those that do not have the physical or mental ability to care for themselves or live with choice due to medical conditions. Most all of us are actual free to choose and we have to help take care of these people, it is the price we pay for the gift we have been born with.
When you really look inward, you will find what you want and you will have to come to terms with how you have lived. You may have lived according to your aspirations or you may not have. You need to know and you need to accept in order to stay the course or change the course. This is the hard part because after years of avoiding our truth we can feel entrenched. We collect so much “stuff” that we can be buried. Let it all go and move forward towards what you know is your truth.
No more excuses, take actions based on your personal truth. Take the control back and fill the void with the confidence found in living according to your beliefs. Acquire knowledge but apply it as you see fit. Be a part of things you believe, but never surrender your identity. Be 100% responsible for you and your choices. Accept that you are perfectly imperfect and that the struggle is the most beautiful and satisfying thing we have in life.
Brian Wright