I burned my finger.
I wasn’t prepared for the pain.
But, who really is? I don’t cook, expecting my finger to get burned!
And yet, that’s exactly what happened.
We don’t go about our lives, expecting the worst to come true. How would we live life and be happy? And yet, when things go wrong, we lose control to the situation at hand.
We’ve got to learn to take control.
The moment I burned my finger, I could feel the pain taking over my awareness.
I started seeing everything through that lens of pain. I felt nothing was going right, and got grumpy. I just reacted to the pain and became my mean self.
I was able to regain composure later on, but that just showed me that there are things that can easily take over our awareness and body, if we let them.
It’s a fight for control. A fight to not let these things fill up every inch of our awareness.
Pain
There are times when all you want to do is make the pain go away.
Sometimes, it’s easy, like my burnt finger. I put it in a bowl of ice water to make the swelling and pain go away.
Other times, it’s hard. Harder than usual.
Because the pain is deeply rooted inside.
And it’s not physical pain.
We hold deep emotional, spiritual pain. Pain that reminds us how lacking we are, how small we are compared to others, compared to the problems we are facing.
Or how we have been scarred by other’s actions, those most close and dear to us. Or even by ourselves, and our negative self-talk. Our criticisms and pressures on ourselves.
Pain doesn’t go away by us giving in to it.
The pain goes away, when we stand up to it, and say,
“I’m stronger than you.”
“I can get through you.”
“I’m bigger than you.”
Then the pain goes away.
Or it might still be there, but it doesn’t bother you anymore.
It doesn’t try to gain control anymore.
Scarcity
Survival is a part of life, and scarcity is one of those deep-rooted beliefs that affect everything that we do, and how we see everything.
It’s one of the beliefs we develop to survive in this “survival of the fittest, dog-eat-dog” world.
If I see opportunities, rewards, recognitions, and even relationships, as scarce, limited, and hard-to-get, imagine how I would act and affect others.
I wouldn’t share.
I’d get as much as I can, and push others away from getting what I have.
I’d work hard, to get things that can normally be shared with, and had for free, like loyalty, camaraderie, togetherness, friendship, and maybe, even love.
I’d wish that others would fail, because them failing to get those rewards, recognition, opportunities, and relationships, would mean more for me.
That’s a taste of believing in scarcity. It influences what we think is possible, and what we do.
If scarcity was what we believed in, and allowed to take over our lives, then we wouldn’t believe in sharing.
We wouldn’t believe in lending a helping hand to people in need, because we’d always be looking out for ourselves only.
We’d be stingy with resources, Not thinking that we have to invest our resources, and time and effort, in order to grow what we already have.
And that includes ourselves. Our scarcity mindset, will eventually push us to the brink – because we’ll keep on having less and less, despite our want for more and more.
That’s not how the world works. If you want more and more, you’ve got to give and help people get more and more. In turn, you’ll get more and more.
There’s more than enough for everyone.
Worry
When we worry, we really don’t have control over what’s going to happen.
But that’s why we worry in the first place.
When we worry, we give up control to our concerns and our fears for the future.
We’ll just keep spinning our wheels worrying about what can happen. In doing that, we actually lose control over what can actually influence the results we get.
Which is, what we do in the here and now.
That’s the only way we can make an impact and determine the future – the future that we want.
The future that we’re so worried about.
Fear
Makes us afraid to put ourself out there, and share what we’ve got.
Makes us afraid to try new things, and possibly fail spectacularly.
Makes us afraid to share a part of ourselves, and in the process, lose it.
To give in, is to lose to fear, and to stop progress and growth.
Frank Herbert wrote in his 1965 Sci-Fi Novel, Dune:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Same goes for pain, scarcity, worry.
I’m actually kind of afraid to share this post with you. That makes it more important for me to actually hit publish, and face my fear.
Be in the moment, and take control.
How do you stay in control in the moment? Please share in the comments below!
Acknowledgements:
- Dune, Frank Herbert (1965)
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