To be, or not to be, that is the question.
- Shakespeare
It is such a binary choice, isn't it? Do I continue on suffering the pains of life, or do I look to end them through death. It seems so simple. But unfortunately, life is a little more complicated, because we make it more complicated. We decide that our feelings are more important than our actions in the hierarchy, so base our actions off how we feel. So when we don't feel good, we react, or we do nothing.
People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.
- Søren Kierkegaard
Yes, this is the same quote I used in the last article about swimming with my family. Because the thing is, that the majority of us are settling with what is largely a life that is degrading. The world is crumbling apart, we are getting ill, we are having mental issues, we are lonely and struggling to make ends meet and rather than trying to make things better, the majority of us are settling for less.
What people don't realise that the person who is trying to maximise their material wealth, is the same as the person trying to minimise it. At least at the individual level, they are identical - just different ends of the same function.
Plus three or minus three, they are both an expression of three.
Making do with less is not a noble cause, nor is trying to get more. It is just a choice. But, what is interesting to me is that rather than working out what we need to do and doing it, we spend our time trying to have the right feelings to get things done.
For instance, tonight I was talking with a friend who is just too busy to make it to the gym, yet . But, this is a feeling, not the reality. She feels like watching television, so she does. She doesn't feel like going to the gym, so she doesn't. The hour spent is the same. The reality is, *she does have the time. What she doesn't have,
Is the will.
Will
/wɪl/
noun
The faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.
Action. That is what we are really talking about here, isn't it? Though, perhaps you might be lost in the ramblings of my mind to realise it at this point. However, maybe in the coming passages I will clear it up. Or not. My point is, while Hamlet contemplated whether it is better to live or die, given the suffering of life, what he should have been considering is whether he should do, or not do.
That is the question.
Think about it in regard to my friend above, who would like the results of going to the gym, but doesn't want to. Every time she has the potential opportunity, she is asking herself "To do, or not to do?" and then choosing based on her feeling. Which in the case of going to the gym, is a not to do, as she chooses to do something else instead.
Are these choices moving us toward our goals though?
Obviously not. But in the moment, what we are doing is favouring our emotional opinion over our chosen goals. We are saying that how I feel now, overrides what I want to accomplish in life. And the more often we do this, not only the less we accomplish, but the less capable we are to override the emotions we have. We hold ourselves back,
Because we don't feel like it.
But we don't question our feelings, do we? We treat them as if they are something tangible, when all they are in our reality is an opinion based on whatever is going on at the time, driven by a host of past relationships and opinions that have twisted our perspective to be what it is, and feel like our perspective, is the truth. But our truth, is looking to make our life - easy.
Easy (adj.)
c. 1200, "at ease, having ease, free from bodily discomfort and anxiety," from Old French aisie "comfortable, at ease, rich, well-off" (Modern French aisé), past participle of aisier "to put at ease," from aise (see ease (n.)). Sense of "not difficult, requiring no great labor or effort" is from late 13c.; of conditions, "offering comfort, pleasant," early 14c
The easy path is the one that puts emotions above actions, because that is what we feel is the right thing to do in the moment. But in reality, what it is going to lead to is being incapable of accomplishing whatever our real goals are. Which means, if we want to grow, we are going to have to live in DIS-Ease.
We have to be uncomfortable, physically and mentally, depending on what we are looking to accomplish. But don't get me wrong here, the goal isn't to actually accomplish at all - it is about the journey. But while journey sounds like a travelling process, what it actually is is a series of decisions and actions made in the now, in each moment. Because now is all we have.
To do, or not to do.
In each moment we are tasked with deciding what our next course of action is. But if we are leaving the decision up to how we feel, we aren't actually making a decision at all. We are a passenger, reacting to the shift of the vehicle that carries us. Swaying side to side, without control over where we are headed. It is easier to not drive.
It is easier to settle.
Each moment we have an array of decisions we could make, and then there are the actions we do make. And what we do is going to shape the next array of choices. And if we keep choosing the easy path, eventually the only choices left, are the ones that are taking away from who we are, making us smaller. Rather than growing ourselves, we are reducing who we are, and who we could be.
You might be on your high-horse talking about how you don't chase material this or that, but I can't guarantee that you are chasing something. Be honest with yourself, and explore what your goals are. And then, if you are happy with that goal - make it happen.
Every decision you make from then on will be in service to your goals. And while there are trade-offs as there are only so much resources and time available, we can still make decisions that further our growth, even if imperfectly. We can't have everything, but we can work toward it.
Saving will never make you wealthy.
Yet, it seems that a lot of people are saving their energy, saving their time, saving the best of themselves, until their conditions improve. Until their feelings improve. Perhaps tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Now is not the right time.
So when is?
What I think people fail to realise is that they are already being something. Being is simple - eight billion of us are being. The question really is, what are we doing? Because what we do becomes who we be.
And what many be, is a load of excuses.
Taraz
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