Friday, January 22, 2010

Taming our Behavior

Today, many of us overwhelmed by social, economic, and political fatigue are searching for ways to deal with the angst stirring the emotional waters of discontent swirling through us. At the heart of our concerns is our constant failures with changing our behavior and reacting to external uncertainties. 

These feelings driving our uncertainties are much more difficult for some of us, because we haven't reached the level of awareness to even acknowledge we are victims (powerless) in most of our relationships with others. So we continue prodding along, sedating ourselves with materialism and egoism, while remaining victimized by life's uncertainties.

When  it comes to living and coping with life's uncertainties, in so many ways we act with childlike behavior. We have to be reminded over and over that we are powerful.  Yet, regardless to how many times we are reminded of our power, we continue to ignore these warnings by embracing intellectual hubris and illusions of grandeur.  In other words, we believe our accomplishments and contributions to society inoculate us from being considered as victims.

Perhaps we feel this way because we have enthroned ourselves to teach those whom we believe are victims how to become like us. This is understandable given the high dosages of egoism we are injecting ourselves with everyday.  When we become so loaded off of egoism, we see the behavior of others quite clearly. Unfortunately, we don't see ours at all.      

As we go through life, shifting through the murk and mud of victimization, we never sober up long enough to understand how we became victims in the first place.  And regardless to the difficulties we face in trying to change our behavior, we seem to always return to those habits that define us as powerless. And it's our habits, our thoughts, that shape our behavior and cause us to feel unworthy or overcome with egoism about ourselves and the relationships we have with others.

The ego-driven behavior we express in our everyday actions is fueled by our insatiable desires for material acquisitions, which only reinforces our victim-hood.  Unfortunately, we believe materialism liberates us from thinking of ourselves as victims.  The more  material acquisitions we have, the more we require to sedate us from the deep angst burning in us. We want to change, but we don't how of anything that's greater than materialism.

Nevertheless, for those of us who are willing to acknowledge our powerlessness and seek ways to overcome it, we must overcome the belief that materialism is a liberating fore. Our quest to acquire materialism has created  grooves of powerlessness in our consciousness that are responsible for subtle, hard-to-detect victim beliefs shaping our everyday behavior.

Although we don't recognize this behavior as victim behavior, particularly in those instances where we have acquired significant amounts of materialism, it's still in us causing us the silent pain and anger we're trying desperately to hide from others.

Meanwhile, when we think about it, we give very little thought to acknowledging that most of our days are the same.  We get up in the mornings, brush our teeth, comb our hair, wash our faces, get the kids ready for school, fix breakfast, greet our spouses, and rush to work.  We don't have to think about doing this, because it's what we do all the time. 

At work, we spend our time meeting deadlines, driving buses, greeting customers, making sales calls, doing presentations, supervising, worrying, gossiping, and complaining about the drudgery of our lives.  We don't examine this behavior or think about changing it.  It's a way of life with us. To change it would be disruptive to our behavior.

After work, we rush home to have a beer, glass of wine or whiskey. We relax for  a few minutes before preparing and eating dinner, chatting with the family about how their day went, while constantly wondering about the  work and challenge facing us tomorrow.

Similarly, with such drudgery-filled lives, it's difficult to accept that we created this environment to spend our lives. Yet, with only minor deviations, this is the way we live five days a week or 260 days a year, minus vacations. And with our days off, we sedate ourselves with more egoism to believe we are actually escaping from the work we find so unfulfilled. This is our legacy to the world.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the mix of work, fun, and rest, we seek refuge in our spiritual realm.  We  work on preparing for life after this one is finished.  As victims, we have been told to join religious organizations, to donate money to worthwhile causes, and to be nice to people, at least those who aren't too obnoxious. By doing these things, we make up for the powerlessness in our everyday behavior.  This helps tame the egoism.

After awhile and after much pain and suffering, many of us still find it's difficult to stop living the way we are living. And without any self-evaluation of our lives, we remain committed to the mundane work that's shaping our legacy.  And like it or not, it's the work we are doing now that defines who we really are. 

Regardless to the importance or lack thereof that we give to our work, it is what defines us. And like it or not, our current behavior defines who we are, and unless we change, this will become our legacy. We either do something different or accept this life for what it really is and begin living it with joy, peace, compassion, and love or we focus on working on the afterlife.

Let's assume we believe we'll have better lives after this one has ended. How do we imagine ourselves living in the afterlife? What kind of behavior will we be expressing there?  Will it be our current behavior or some unknown behavior that will magically appear in our other lives after we begin our new lifestyles? 

The habits we have now are the only ones we're using to define ourselves.  And until we develop the clarity of mind to create some new ones, there's nothing to suggest that we'll act any different somewhere else than we are now.  We are our habits.  We are our thoughts. We are our beliefs.  And like it or not, we are responsible for the habits expressing themselves as victims in our lives.

To change our habits, we must change the awareness we have about ourselves and the power available to us. We must find this power and use it to create new beliefs and actions that express who desire to be. And in the process, we must enter into enlightenment awareness to help us overcome our addiction to materialism and egoism.

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