Most people fail to appreciate the fresh opportunity that each day brings them. Their programming requires them to snort derisively at concepts like the one above. After all, the systems of this world are built upon the assumption that mankind is weak, stupid, and generally inadequate to a moral existence. As a result, most people have become addicted to bad news.
Nonetheless every day is a fresh start, a situation created by nature itself. So, please consider this:
What if, just once, you got out of bed and imagined that you were a fresh being in the universe? And more than that, a good, creative, potent being.
What if you imagined yourself free of obligations and intimidations, charting a fresh course? What if you looked at your life as if it were beginning anew?
Is it an intolerable thought that you should put aside your well-groomed fears, wake up to a blank slate, and hold that position for just one day? And if we can’t allow ourselves this one productive entertainment, what has happened to us?
You Don’t Actually Suck
Our opinions of ourselves are usually out of touch with reality. To prove that, you need only to slow down, clear your mind, and fill in a few blanks:
- Can you remember a moment from your childhood when someone was notably kind or loving toward you? You have at least one, yes? So, in detail, what was it like and how did you feel?_______________________________________________
- Can you remember a time you stood up for someone who was being unfairly insulted or abused? What exactly did you do, and how did it make you feel?_________________________________________________________
- Can you remember a time when you did something because it was right, even though you knew you’d suffer for it? How did it feel to push through the fear and do it?_____________________________________________________
- Have you ever done something out of nothing but simple, honest benevolence? How did that feel?_____________________________________________
Did you answer these questions? Did you relive the experiences a little?
You see, you don’t actually suck. You’ve merely been made to believe so… by people and systems who profited from your bad-news addiction.
What’s Life For?
You are alive, and this life you possess doesn’t have a preset direction; it’s you who choose where to direct it. Our lives have the meaning we give them, and we give them meaning through exercises of will.
You have immense capabilities, but only you can choose to use them. If you spend your entire life reacting to darkness and threat, you’ll never learn to be a potent being. Instead, you’ll stay in a tight little shell, talking about everything bad that happens in the world, seeking more and more bad news because it justifies your shell.
Does that sound like a good way to spend a life?
When? Ever?
So, when do we pull away from the carnival of bad news? When do we lift up our eyes and consider the radical possibility that we have good things in us too? When do we dare consider our virtues and abilities… and start using them as a first choice?
For most people the answer is “never.” Not once in a complete human lifetime. And that’s tragic. In fact, it’s premature death. Most people aren’t specifically choosing this of course – it’s a choice thrust upon them by authority – but it ends with them never living by their own light. Instead, they find a “doesn’t hurt too badly” groove and plod along until they tip into a grave.
But what if we picked a day and chose to live as if we were wonderful? If you’re so deeply terrified that that will lead to doom, make it your day off or a vacation day. Get up and spend that day as if you were a luminous being. Flatly pretend if you must, but do it for a day.
Is that really so evil a concept that you can’t consider it? Even a five-point Calvinist, committed to the “depravity of man,” has to admit that Jesus defended David for saying, “You are gods.” Is that not enough to justify a one-day experiment? And if not, doesn’t that void the gospel of John?
So, when is it that we choose to wake up and be wonderful, just for one day?
Pick One
Every tomorrow is a new day and a new chance to be wonderful. So pick a day and wake up to a blank slate.
Turn away from the knee-jerk objections that ram their way into your mind; they can have the other 364 days.
Try being wonderful. You might like it. Pull out your calendar, pick a month and day, circle it, and then do it.
* * * * *
A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:
- I just finished reading The Breaking Dawn and found it to be one of the most thought-provoking, amazing books I have ever read… It will be hard to read another book now that I’ve read this book… I want everyone to read it.
- Such a tour de force, so many ideas. And I am amazed at the courage to write such a book, that challenges so many people’s conceptions.
- There were so many points where it was hard to read, I was so choked up.
- Holy moly! I was familiar with most of the themes presented in A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the concepts you presented at the end of this one.
Get it at Amazon ($18.95) or on Kindle: ($5.99)
* * * * *
Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com