It’s
acrid and paralyzing. Your limbs don’t matter anymore. All you have
is a stomach, and even that is turning in on itself. If you could
move, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Because the fear is inside you,
there is no place to run.
Fear is a harsh master. It dictates our actions
and rules us with an iron fist. We think that we fear many things.
Breakups. Bad judgments. Lost dreams. Lions. Tigers. Bears.
But the truth is that all our fears boil down to
one basic idea: we fear that the reality we are about to
experience is not in line with the reality we want to experience.
And therein lies the problem.
We place expectations on our world. We want our lives to work out
exactly the way we want them to. And when the possibility
arises where they might not, we become afraid.
When we try to impose our will on the world around
us, we become trapped in the illusion that the responsibility for our
entire universe rests solely upon our sound judgment. Somehow, we
come to believe that we have a modicum measure of control over our
lives. And this is what causes us to fear.
But we don’t have that control. We never will.
We are tiny little microdots
on the infinite blotter paper of the cosmos, and we have no power
over the type of trip this will be.
Just kidding.
More like this:
While it may be hard for our egos to accept, it is
overwhelmingly apparent that we did not create the world we live in.
And this world, and many others, will still live on no matter what we
manage to “accomplish” during our really tiny
life-spans. It doesn’t matter what precautions we take. We have
no control, and our actions are of no importance. So, it doesn’t
matter if we were wearing our seat belts.. When it is our fate to
die, or be paralyzed, or widowed, for example, then there is nothing
we can do to stop it.
Is there anything positive that comes from
accepting this truth? Undoubtedly. It is the most freeing realization
we will ever make. When we stop fearing our choices, we come to
believe that we are always 100% guaranteed to fulfill our destinies.
We accept that we have only one fate, and thus, we have no other
option but to live it. Our lives will develop in precisely the
same manner that they are supposed to, and there is absolutely
nothing we can do to influence them otherwise.
But surely we have some choice in it, right?
Aren’t there certain things I must do if I want to be a Hollywood
actress, for example? We tell ourselves this, but is it really the
case? There is not an easy answer. Take as a case study three actors
whose paths to fame were entirely different.
These two actors were
discovered as they randomly went about their business.
Evangeline
Lilly, star of the ABC series Lost, was discovered by a
modeling agent while working as a flight attendant for Air Canada.
David
Boreanaz was walking his dog in Los Angeles when a talent scout
told him he’d be perfect for the role of Angel in Buffy The
Vampire Slayer.
However, Rachel
Dratch studied theater at Dartmouth College and joined an improv
troupe in Chicago before she made it to SNL. Her “plan”
was clearly to make it as an actress. But was she any more likely to
be successful than either Lilly or Boreanaz? It seems that fate was
determined to make all three of these people famous, no matter what
they may have intended or hoped for their lives.
….What this means is that the universe also
has a plan for you. We can debate for days on whether or not the
universe or God is consciously aware of you and your fate, but the
outcome of that discussion has no impact on the obvious truth: you
have only one right now, and there is only one way that you can live
it.
So, if we are not able to influence the outcome of
our lives, does that mean then that we are free to sit on the couch
all day and wait for our destiny to play out?
…Certainly. But what fun is that? We may not
know what our paths are going to be, but we might as well enjoy the
journey as we find out. And as we do this, we can take solace and
find peace in the fact that we are doing exactly as we are meant to.
When the fear comes, we must close our eyes and
allow it to wash over us. We must taste the fear on our tongues and
then swallow it down back to the nothingness from where it came.
Self-will is an illusion and fear is its magic wand. Acceptance is
the key to letting go and finding inner peace.
Once we stop trying to conform ourselves into
the shapes we want to be, we can pay attention to the shapes that we
are.