Just for fun, we have decided to name his posts "HILLIGraphy." :-) I will be posting the following essay in six parts.
(Note: We can discuss his thoughts after I've posted all six...or along the way.)
Creating Your Own Life (Part 1)
Of all the people that you'll ever know in your life, you are the only one that you'll never leave or lose. And so, to the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems in your life, you are the only solution.
People often make the mistake of looking outside of themselves in order to discover the source of their own lives. For example, many of them point to their past in order to justify the things that are unraveling in their lives right now. How many times have you heard a variation of this same lament: "My life doesn't work very well because of how I was raised." Essentially, this familiar excuse is really an irresponsible cop-out. You are not so much a victim of your past conditioning as you are a product of it.
Here's something to consider: Although we all live on the crosshairs of life (the "here and now,") the only thing that's actually real is this present moment. For example, when you're remembering the past or imagining the future, you're referencing them both from the only place where you can actually exist in...this moment of "now."
Because the past does not "cause" the present moment, what happened to you back then is not very important. In fact, the events that occurred in your childhood...no matter how painful...are not nearly as deterministic for you in the present as are the conclusions that you've drawn from them. In other words, it's the interpretation or spin that you, yourself, have given to your earlier events that now shape how you relate to both the world in general and to yourself in particular.
But as long as you continue to blame your past experiences for your current life's conditions, you're avoiding your own personal responsibility for changing those conditions. Instead of acknowledging yourself as the creator of your own life, you'll spend your life waiting for someone (or something) else to change first.
to be continued...
hmmm... Yes, but it's no fun being the only one who's changing if the other person doesn't want to play along. But wait...perhaps the change is not actually change at all.
ReplyDeleteI may be premature in commenting before the rest of the essay, but I just had this thought that perhaps the "change" is merely getting a different perspective. Is that it? Do do you think that's what others mean by "beauty from ashes?"