Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions
Awakening to your life
Submitted by RagsToRich on Mon, 2010-04-19 11:52
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Have you noticed how most people seem to go through their whole lives in a terrible trance? They have been trapped by the behaviours and beliefs which have been injected into them by society and by the authority figures in their life. They, of course, believe they are completely free and making their own decisions but to someone else who is even slightly outside of the tight constraints of that person’s belief system it is painfully obvious just how trapped and automatic they are.Not only do they live completely by other people’s rules and beliefs, but they will actually passionately defend these beliefs as being the absolute truth of how things are. No matter how ridiculously constrained the belief seems to an outside observer.
Remember, I am not just talking about the odd individual here. I am talking about the vast majority. It is an absolute certainty that some of the people reading this very sentence will be exactly who I’m talking about. I don’t want you to take this personally, I want to grasp hold of the greater knowledge I’m about to give you.
Have you ever mentioned to someone a plan you have, something which you’re going to do and which you’re very confident about being able to do? And after you mention this to them their pupils widen and they vehemently declare – “You can’t! You can’t do that!”
They are not trying to be difficult, they mean it – they truly do not believe that it is at all possible. It’s not even that they believe it’ll be difficult, they actually just cannot see how it’s possible.
Trapped and out of control
In personal development we would say that these people have a limiting belief which prevents them from seeing the possibility of what you’re about to do. I absolutely can not remember the amount of times this has happened to me in the past, I practically don’t hear it when people say those words to me any more because it means almost nothing to me to hear them.
Everyone, apart from maybe the most enlightened spiritual practitioners, is restricted by some limiting beliefs. Even high achievers and long-term personality developers still have limiting beliefs. It’s at area you can almost always work on improving.
But the cold reality is that most people are not just limited by the odd belief. They are actually completely and horribly trapped by a terrible twisted cage of restraints. This system of crushing beliefs will not only prevent them from seeing the occasional possibility here and there – instead it is well on course to completely pre-determine their whole life. They will work and live and their life will pass in a flash of uninspiration and then they will die not knowing what happened, why, or where it all went wrong.
For a while I struggled to believe how some people could be content with being carried down the stream tied to a raft with no paddles. With all of the things I strive to improve myself in every day, with all the skills I’ve sought and learnt about, with all of the experiences I’ve had and the new ones I seek, how the hell could anyone be happy with doing the same thing week after week – watching hours and hours of TV, burning their money on endless amounts of junk food and alcohol, and so on?
They just don’t realise that there is any other way.
Just imagine how you would see someone who lived in the basement of their house, had food delivered to them, and never opened their windows or climbed the stairs to the rest of the house. Throw in a TV channel with hour after hour of day-time TV. You could tell them about all the wondrous things in the house above, but would they believe you? Things are so easy and simple down in the basement, why risk all that effort and maybe even danger of climbing the stairs and opening the door?
The same analogy can be applied to the people stuck in the house who do not venture outside, to those stuck in the street, to those stuck in the neighbourhood, to those stuck in the town, or EVEN to those stuck in the COUNTRY…
Can you see what point I’m making here? If you’re already out the house but you’ve never left the country it’s obvious to you that the life-style of the basement dweller is a terrible waste. However, it’s no more obvious to him that he’s wasting his life, as it is to you that the country-leavers are not just a bunch of risk-taking wack-jobs.
Challenging limiting beliefs is a process for all of us.
Having a moment of realisation which changes everything
The moment when you realise that there is an infinite number of possibilities to your own life, and that you can realise these possibilities by expansion of the mind, by living consciously, and by actually taking action, this is what I call awakening to your life.This awakening can come in many forms, sometimes it is gradual and sometimes abrupt. For my personally it was drastically abrupt and it came in the form of realising that by stepping up and taking conscious action you can get the things you’ve only dreamt about and perhaps prayed for.
I spent over an hour frozen looking at myself in the mirror. I realised that simply “hoping” that certain things would happen in my life was just going end up in a life of confusion, auto-pilot, and regret that the undiscovered dreams which I hadn’t even looked that closely into never ending up on my door-step.
Sorry if this seems preachy, but if this article helps one person see the light then a whole life has been change forever!
If you’ve already awakened to your life then I could be preaching to the converted. If that’s the case – no harm done. This site will hopefully provide you many other fine articles and if anything this article should just be a reminder to you of how thankful you can be for that moment of awakening.
I know that I am MASSIVELY grateful for mine, and even though I was 24 when I began to open my eyes to life I dare not waste a minute regretting it didn’t happen sooner. The realisation is so potent and time becomes so valuable that there is simply no room for regret. Some people spend all the years of their life with a blindfold on.
In the years I have spent with an open mind consciously developing my self and my life I have gained infinitely so much that I can’t help but just be incredibly thankful for those moments of realisation and awakening which have brought me to where I am now.
If YOU are stuck on repeat, do NOT allow things to continue
Your life is zooming by at a very fast speed. Next week you could realise that ten years have gone by and you’re still doing the same things. These days I think it’s regretful if someone is still doing the same things week by week! Never mind year by year.
Everything you believe now could just be trapping you. A good sign this might be happening is that a couple of years have gone by and you have exactly the same friends, the same hobbies, the same job, and you’re living in the same location. Another good sign is that years have gone by and your dreams, whatever they may be, seem just as far away as ever.
If I am describing you, I can only hope that somehow this article has helped you to open your eyes, or at the very least has helped you to realise that you MUST open your eyes ASAP. The truth is it’s incredibly difficult to convince someone who’s in this situation that they need to make the decision to step up and enlighten themselves. I know, I’ve tried many times.
You can’t make the decision for someone else, you can only try to help them see it’s something they might want to take a very immediate and very in-depth look at. This is a decision which someone must come to on their own. They must have their own epiphany, and their own grand moment of realisation.
But like anything else, if the expectation is that this realisation will come delivered on a platter then you are gambling the entirety of your life on a dice-roll and the odds are extremely far from in your favour. The number of people who live and day and do almost absolutely nothing with their life is extremely massive in comparison to those who do not.
Don’t let the torrent push you where it wants you to go any more. Step up and begin taking responsibility for every single thing in your life. You can affect everything, there is nothing which you cannot change, and there is absolutely nothing which you have no control over.
Coming soon – the next step in this process, opening up your mind.
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Re: Awakening to your life
Just found your site and I think you are doing a really good job here.
I am personally going through a sort of "awakening" at the moment. The part of the article I particularly liked was where you asked what has changed over the last few years. I have personally found myself in the same job with the same friends and noticed no real progress in the last few years. Luckily I am taking some steps to try and overcome that.
Keep up the good work. Ill have to look through the other articles too.
Re: Awakening to your life
Hey Ducky,
Thanks for the comments. I actually wrote this post with the hope of it finding people who are just how you describe.
Changing friends is actually a lot easier than it sounds. The only real challenge is finding an area where you can meet a lot of new people who are also looking to meet new people. Finding people in real-life who are also, in some way, interested in personal development or, at least, are open-minded and ambitious is key. Special interest groups are a good way to start.
Changing work can be difficult. It's not easy to just jump into a new job, and sometimes that has to be done a few times because 9-5 office people tend to be quick to make judgement and slow to change them - that's bad for a fledgling self-developer. I changed jobs 3 times in under a year after I discovered personal development. Each time increasing my wage, responsibility, but, more importantly, entering new social circles with a fresh slate.
That repeated reset of my colleagues definately helped my progress, and also helped me see how most people will so easily judge someone based on their very initial preconceptions. Seeing how my newest colleagues at the end of that year acted around me compared to the colleagues I had at the start of the year was quite enlightening.
I hope you find the advice you need here!
Rich
Re: Awakening to your life
Rich
I am unsure were your instruction lies.
Reading this passage feels detrimental and some of 'us people will love our 9 - 5 jobs, same thing-day-in-day-out- with loving family -working-class values, and may never want to be changed'?
Are you pigeon holing your audience?
Re: Awakening to your life
The guy in the basement loves his comfy basement.
If someone were to come here, read this, and think that either it is nonsense or that it's preachy - that is fine. They are free to ignore it.
I don't want to come accross like I'm on some high horse - it's not like that at all. I have complete respect for whatever level anyone chooses to stay at.
But on the other hand I make absolutely no apology for violently shaking anyone who reads this article. That's what this article is about.
This website is not some day-to-day feel-good hit - it's about getting off your ass and making things happen. There's enough feel-good sites out there which are keeping people exactly where they are. This site is about helping people grow.
Thanks for the comments,
Rich
Re: Awakening to your life
Genius! Inspirational!
I love this!
Its like a crisp breath of fresh air.
I understand your angle now.. I like!
Re: Awakening to your life
Thanks buddy.
I'm hoping to expand on this theme in future. In some ways I don't think the process of expanding your perspective and opening your mind further ever ends - there's always another level of reality to discover.
Re: Awakening to your life
Hi Rich,
I want to thank you very deeply for sharing yourself here. Its truly an honor to see another like-mind shining so brightly!
You're such an inspiration!
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