From the moment we are born, we are inculcated into our societal norms, we are pounded into submission by our education, our employment, our marital situation, our obligations, our responsibilities, our debts. On and on it goes, with each step along the way pressing us to prepare for the next phase.
It’s so easy, we fall into it as we grow up. We are on the receiving end of so much that it is hard not to see us as the tail being wagged by the dog.
Without taking time to think and self-reflect, it is all too easy to be pushed and prodded into believing that what is being pressed upon us is for our own good, or since it is expected of us it must be for our best interests.
We are advertised to, we are manipulated and propagandized to so much that we start to accept how whatever it is; we think it must be what is appropriate. However, there is no truth to what we are being told.
By accepting all that is thrust upon us, we become the victims. We are victims of our place in the world. In such a condition, so little arises from within ourselves, so little is of our own making, that we live in the world as if we were not an individual. And so it goes in our financial lives as well.
We end up choosing direction from only a small subset of available possibilities. It seems that all of that advertising, all of those media messages, all of the propaganda we are subjected to is all geared to limit what possibilities we can see for ourselves. We look upon ourselves as limited, with limited talents, limited trajectories, limited capabilities. And then, within confines of these limits, we attempt to live.
But
But there is a way to see it all as it is. And when we can see it all as it is, we then have an opening that can lead to far more freedom than we have ever previously experienced.
Freedom
How to achieve freedom? Firstly, it begins with thinking for oneself.
How?
How to think for oneself? That is not as easy as it sounds. The following joke illustrates this:
Older fish to younger fish: How’s the water?
Younger fish: What is water?
The environments and contexts we live within are fluid and changing, and we change with them without realizing it, and we usually do not notice how tethered we are to the dynamic influences that run our lives. They pull us, they push us, and we bend to them without seeing what is really occurring.
So how to begin to think for oneself?
Here are some suggestions. One, turn off media for a while. All media. Television, radio, internet, social media, movies and cinema, music, news. All of it.
Why?
We will never be able to think for ourselves if we are unable or unwilling to turn off the avalanche of noise and shouting that surrounds us. All of this noise and shouting is not just around us, it is directed directly at us. We need to step away from it if we are ever able to think for ourselves.
Then
Then look. Look at everything. Question everything. Go outside, ask questions about everything. Find a place with nature… a park, a woods, a beach, anything. Question what you see. Question without judgment. Just watch. Watch everything from a quiet personal place.
The purpose of turning off the external is to allow ourselves to access our internal. Quiet the outside person, and listen for the inside person.
By quieting oneself, without distractions or incoming information, we have a chance to see the world as it is. Can we see what is without judging it?
Can we see what is without judging it?
Be a Martian
Avoid looking at things from a specific perspective. Become a Martian. If you were a Martian who just landed on Earth, how would you see what you see? And more importantly, how would you see it?
If you are trained in a certain field, turn off your critical expertise in this area when you look at everything. Do not fall victim to the curse of the expert. Be a newcomer, an alien, something untrammeled by old opinions and educated knowledge.
The following quote describes the burden that language and culture that separates us from what is:
“Teach a child the name of a flower, and they will never see that flower again.”
What does this mean?
When we associate names with things, we are quick to jump to the name of the thing or the label of the thing the next time we see it. So, then, we skip the discovery part of the thing, and we gravitate to and focus on the name or label. We can never again see that thing without the cloud of its name or label descending upon us.
How have you turned to see the world as it is? Send a comment here: Contact.
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