Here is a story.
A man (let us call him John) is living a very distressing situation. His late brother committed a reproachful action but, for a whim of fate, people believe that John is the culprit. As a consequence they treat him with contempt, they avoid him as much as they can, they openly show that they despise him. John thinks that such behavior is caused by his brother’s misdeed. Therefore he bears everything, suffering in silence. He believes that, by accepting such pitiful situation, he is showing his deceased brother (actually, his memory) how much he loved and still loves him.
This situation goes on for many years till one day, just by chance, John discovers the truth. Someone throws the most dreadful accusations unto his face. At first John refuses to believe them. He cannot accept the fact that his family and so-called friends had believed him to be the offender. Neither can he admit that those people considered his humble stance as an admission of guilt and of consequent shame.
Eventually he has to believe it. And his world totally collapses and shatters into pieces. He realizes that he had been living in a fictitious reality most of his life. All he had believed in was a lie. His eyes had been covered by a blindfold, the illusion of sacrificing his social status for his brother’s sake while people were laughing behind his back.
This is a sad story that may or may not be true. Its meaning is frightening and comforting at the same time, though. Impossible for it to be both, you say? I don’t think so. Let us see. John’s adventure is appalling because it shows, once again, how life can be a sort of hallucination, a dream where everything you believe to be true, in reality it is not. On the other hand, there is also a consoling side, i.e. the realization that you can remove the blindfold and see the world as it is. How do you know that you are living in a world that is not real? Easy. You are in a sort of “la-la land” when you spend a good amount of your time being angry, upset, jealous, resentful, patronizing, conceited, stingy, greedy, overbearing, controlling, victimized, frustrated .... Please, fill in the space with any other adjective you might find relevant, maybe relevant to your own behavior.
We have already said more than once that it is your attitude that makes the world the way you experience it. But the repetitions are never enough until you really grasp the idea. Example: Let’s assume that a colleague of yours (or your spouse, or a friend) has the tendency to correct (or, even worse, criticize) your way of carrying out a certain task. When he does it, you become furious, your anger boils inside of you, although you don’t say anything because you are a “good” person and don’t want to make a scene. But your mood is totally ruined. Such mood accompanies you throughout the day. As a consequence, you find your lunch uneatable, the traffic on your way home awful, the children exceptionally noisy, your wife a bit too talkative. See the scenario? It all started with the blindfold.
When you accepted to nurse the feeling of upset caused by your colleague’s remark, you created a whole atmosphere around yourself. A negative place was born where you lingered throughout the day because you were not aware that your eyes could not see clearly. “See” what? That nothing is worth your upset. You can resent someone’s behavior for a short while, a few minutes at the most, but then... release it! It’s not the end of the world. Well, actually, it could be the end of “one” world, the “negative” world that you, yourself, have created with your own imagination, interpretation, judgment.
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Blog: recreateyourlifetoday.blogspot.com
Creative Thinking: A ‘la-la world’
