Hi everyone, welcome back! Even though I had promised I would be back last Friday, I skipped last week because of the kind of reaction the U.S. election results received. And since then, I have spent a lot of time thinking about why is it that people voted the way they did and the fact that the rest of the nation and may be even the world re-acted the way it did. And on top of that, I have also been trying to understand if the electing of this new president is this really a huge problem, the way a lot of people in this world think it is. But before you read on, just a disclaimer that this is not a political post if that’s what you are here to read. In the process of trying to make sense of everything that just happened, I understood something very interesting about a human mind. So, if you are interested in learning/remembering something more about how a human mind works, read on.
Belief: Other people and outside situations are responsible for my happiness and peace!
In one of my previous posts, I have talked about how a human mind defines problems – anything that doesn’t align with an individual’s belief system is called a ‘problem’ which needs to be solved. And this recent U.S. election just confirmed that mindset once again. The mindset of fear and disappointment and frustration and pain and sadness. All of it! But if you look very closely and reflect upon your own re-action to this election, you will notice a trend. A trend which has nothing to do with just an election and its outcome. This is a trend where so many people stay in a perpetual state of anger and frustration and sadness and all the other emotions that I just mentioned above. And all these negative emotions ooze out as soon as people encounter an event, even an insignificant one at that. Some people are angry because they think their neighbor is a racist. Some people are frustrated because they think their spouse doesn’t behave the way they think he should. Some people are sad because their kids don’t do what they think the kids should do. Some people are angry because they think their bosses are jerks. Some people are angry because they think they live in a country that is not run by the right politicians etc. etc. And as always, I can just go on and on and on here. So folks, there are 2 things that I would like to point your attention towards. The first is that a human being wants to control everything and everyone around them and the second is that because they want to control everything and everyone around them, they are always focused on everything and everyone outside of them! And this is what keeps people so far away from experiencing peace within. Let me explain further.
Let’s take this recent election as an example because it is still fresh in our minds. Since this was a historic election not only because a non-politician was one of the contenders; on top of that, to the entire world’s amazement, this non-politician who has his peculiar ways ended up winning the election! And the people who didn’t vote for him and didn’t want him to be the president of this country, started to feel a lot of fear. And people feel a lot of fear because their minds started to imagine all the really bad things this new president can do in the 4 years he will be in office and how these really bad things can hurt their families and their lives. Hence this fear has come forth as a lot of anger and frustration from various people all over the world. However, to the people who are reacting with anger and frustration (and I was one of them until I caught myself reacting this way), I have a few questions which I would like you to answer honestly. Has anything bad happened to you or your family since the new president was elected? Do you think this anger and frustration you have could also be because of all the fear that you had already inside of you and the election is just another event that triggered all that fear in you? Don’t you agree that since you voted in this election, you already did whatever you could possibly do and you didn’t have any more control over the election and its results? If you answered yes to these questions, don’t you think it’s not the election results rather your own fearful thinking and imagination about everything bad that could happen in the future which is causing you so much misery? Don’t you think you tried to control what the outcome of this election by expecting that the results would align with your own beliefs and how you voted? How do you know the candidate you had voted for would have brought you peace and happiness – because your mind told you so?
Folks, human beings think that the quality of their lives and the happiness and peace that they can feel in their own lives is completely dependent upon what happens in the outside world and how people around them behave. And if whatever happens is in agreement with an individual’s belief, they think they will be happy and peaceful. But have you ever tested this theory to understand if it is actually true or not? I have and each time I have tested, I have confirmed my new belief that I am responsible for my own happiness and peace regardless of who gets elected, how my spouse and kids behave, how big of a jerk my boss may be, how crazy my next door neighbor is works!! However, it’s not an easy approach to live life because we were not raised with this understanding and trying to unlearn old beliefs takes a lot of practice. But this is where it begins – if I want to be peaceful and happy, I have to make a decision to be happy and peaceful. Then when faced with any situation and event, I have a choice – I can choose to believe my fearful thinking which tells me how all these people and events are making my life miserable and I can become all stressed and angry or I can choose to not believe in my own thinking and instead remember that it’s my own fearful thinking which is causing me so much stress and misery and I can choose to let go of such thoughts. More on how I have been choosing to let go of my own negative thinking next time.
And if you feel like leaving a comment, you are more than welcome, else, live life and I will be back next Friday 🙂
