"Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn't be done."
... Amelia Earhart
Of course, what I say here (indeed, what I say anywhere in this entire
internet
series of
Conversations For
Transformation)
is just my opinion. But if I'm going to opine about the
one belief which is most widely held by people to be true for all
people about people and about Life itself, there's really no doubt as
to what it would be.
There are so many beliefs we, humanity, collectively hold to be good
and true. Actually most of what we, humanity, hold to be
good and true is good and true (people are, for the
most part, basically good) ... AND ... then there are
those beliefs we hold to be good and true, those beliefs we're
certain are good and true, those beliefs we run our lives
by, those beliefs we set our compasses by, which aren't true at
all. Such beliefs which we assume to be true which aren't
true at all, still have the power to drive our lives - as any belief
does - even though they aren't based in truth. When our lives are
driven by beliefs which aren't based in truth, they become
skewed. Then everything (yes, everything) in our
skewed lives becomes ... well ... (for want of a better
word),
off: off-base, off-target, ... just ... off.
When the lives we live become skewed ie off, they become harder and
harder ie they don't
work
well - and it's not too difficult to figure out why. Off-base beliefs
(mis-beliefs, actually) have become the foundations on which
more misbeliefs are formed ie based, which in turn become the
foundations on which more misbeliefs are formed ie based etc etc. It's
pretty obvious a life based on layers and layers of misbelief, has the
stability and the
integrity
of a house of
cards.
It's no wonder Life is hard going sometimes - if not
most of the time - when lived this way.
The possibility of uncovering a (if not, "the")
fundamental misbelief in our thinking, on top of which all subsequent
misbeliefs and mis-learnings are formed ie based,
fascinates me. In my own inquiry into what the fundamental misbelief
is, this is what I've come up with. And by the way, what I've found out
isn't presented here as "the truth" - indeed, once
anything I say about beliefs comes off as "the truth", then essentially
I'm lying (as
Werner Erhard
may have said). Rather, it's presented here as a platform on which
to stand from which to look.
Here it is: we have it that it's not possible to be whole,
complete, fulfilled, satisfied, and happy just in the process of
Life itself with nothing added and with nothing taken away.
When I say "we have it that ...", I'm not saying we've
decided that. I'm not even saying we consciously
know that. When I say "we have it that it's not possible to
be whole, complete, fulfilled, satisfied, and happy just in the process
of Life itself with nothing added and with nothing taken away", I'm
saying it's just that way for us - it's just that way for
us without question, without examination, without inquiry. We
have it that in order to be whole, complete, fulfilled, satisfied, and
happy, something else other than Life itself is required.
And for the most part, we do pretty well with that belief set in stone
at the
heart
of what drives us. We use it to decide and define what will make us
whole, complete, fulfilled, satisfied, happy.
Now, there's
nothing
wrong
with any of that. It's what most modern societies are built on. It's
what the "American Dream" is built on. And I'm for sure
not proposing it be eliminated. Rather, what I'm proposing is we
consider newly the possibility of Life itself being enough for
wholeness, completion, fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness
before we set out to do the things we do.
It's more than simply turning around the way we regard
wholeness, completion, fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness as
being the
goal of Life, to them being the
source
of Life. What this really implies is resetting our
compasses in a very fundamental way, a way which completely
rearranges the priorities of what we do and what we choose to do, a way
which has the possibility of rearranging what Life will be about for
each of us. And be careful: this possibility may seem new, but it isn't
new. It's old. Very old - ancient, in fact. And it's never gone
away. What happened, however, is it got buried by our misbeliefs about
what Life is all about - to the degree that we no longer consider the
possibility of simply being alive to be ... well ... "enough".
This is a wonderful life. Living my life entirely as an act of
creation coming from being already whole,
complete, fulfilled, satisfied, and happy, is something they said
makes no sense. It's something they said couldn't be
done.