To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds. by William James
Invitation to what you may ask? This is an invitation to ask you to unravel and bring forth the inner gift bestowed upon you. Each of us carries a treasure, a treasure to be discovered. What stands between you and your treasure is your mindset. Your mindset is a conglomeration of your learned behavior and a little of your own authentic self. The learned mindset feels comfortable with the familiar and refuses to be disturbed. The new authentic mindset wants to show its presence. Thus there is a continuous contention between the two. The old, the dying and the familiar are persistent since you have developed intimacy and have acquired a habit. As this contention between the two occurs there is discomfort and agony and at one point it becomes bothersome. You now experience a contest between the past and the present.
The past is busy justifying and legitimizing itself. The mindset of the past makes you believe that is who you are. You attach yourself to it and it becomes your identity. You become blind to new opportunities since the past hinders you from seeing the reality. You define yourself as if you are static and even develop a ritual to maintain the old and the dying. The moment reality shows up you become defensive and shy away from taking responsibility and being accountable. Then you proceed with your complaint. You are so attached to your past identity that your denial continues and you miss out from discovering the new and unknown. It even deprives you from realizing your capability in creating a new phenomenon.
What is the advantage to holding on to the past and the familiar? It provides a superficial comfort and really it is superficial since there is nothing in the history of humanity that has remained constant. Each breath you take is fundamentally different than the one you took a second ago. There are seamless and invisible changes you go through constantly. However, the mind makes you believe that everything is permanent and you end up being unchanged. You wallow in the same mundane thinking and you miss discovering your natural gift. Your past road map creates friction between the old and the new. The nonalignment between the past and the present eventually brings frustration.
The past makes you pessimist and shields you from knowing the cause of the discomfort. Loss of purpose, stagnation, discomfort, remorse, sorrow and a perpetual denial of reality literally eat and consume you. You exert unnecessary energy. The effort to maintain the habit requires double fold energy. It only satisfies your ego. It makes you resist and what you end up with is internal disturbance and disharmony. You end up reinforcing a dis-empowering belief. But the very thing you are resisting blinds you to the present. Hence, what you end up doing is projecting the past to the present and you continue to resist. You miss out from entertaining possibilities. What you resist persists and the cycle will continue until you consciously disconnect yourself from the past.
My invitation to you is to find strength and risk and venture out and stretch yourself. The process of creation slowly but surely will first bliss you with quantitative change. And in the spur of a moment you will witness the new beginning leading you to a qualitative change. You get to raise the bar and step out of stagnation. Contemplate on my invitation. Play around with the idea. You will wake up to a whole new you. This invitation will help you propel yourself to express your grander self. by Shashu Habtu
