I was listening to the Waking Up meditation app with neuroscientist Sam Harris and he spoke about something being pleasant or unpleasant and how we put that definition on the moment rather than the moment doing it for us.
For example, we may think eating chocolate is pleasant and eating a piece of celery is less pleasant. But is it? Who decides? Maybe the celery makes us feel healthy and balanced. Maybe the chocolate makes us feel shame for overindulging. But his point is that nothing should make us feel anything. Everything just is.
It is as it is, yet we decide if it makes us happy or sad or hopeful or desolate or something in between.
Who decides if it has been a bad day? Maybe the things that went wrong were lessons that helped us grow. Or led us to meet someone we were meant to cross paths with.
All is well.
A Chinese proverb says, “He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.”
Blame no one. Embrace the loss of focus or the detour as part of the path. Begin again.
Tomorrow is another day. Is the traffic jam something to make our blood boil or to make us realize we have a few more minutes to breathe deep or listen to a podcast or think about the day ahead of us?
Is the disagreement a deal breaker or an opportunity to see the other side and change our mind?
Is the financial loss rock bottom or is it a chance to recalibrate our goals and values and choose another direction?
Will we continue to decide what is good and bad in life or will we inhale each moment as the exact thing we need to evolve? Is it possible to take the lesson we most often do not see until years down the road and implement it into our understanding today?
Anything is possible. Blame no one. And you have arrived.