Another excerpt from the book That’s It!?.
The work up before this section deals with the loss of our passion for life…
So again, we’ve lost something; this passion or equity. Where do we look to find it again? What is always said when any of us lose something? “Do you remember when you last had it?” If you’ve lost your keys and you last remember having them in the kitchen, you go to the kitchen and look around.
Like one of the many stories of Nasrudin, an ancient story character often found in Sufi teachings who is commonly referred to as the archetypal wise fool, his friend came upon him on his hands and knees beneath the lamp pole in front of his house, shuffling his hands through the dirt as if he is looking for something. His friend said, “Nasrudin, what is it you have lost, I will help you find it.” “My keys” Nasrudin replies, “I’ve lost my keys.” To this the friend replies, “When did you last have them out here?” “No, not out here, I lost them in the backyard, but there’s more light out here.” He’s looking to find his keys where it is more convenient for him, not where he lost them! That’s a great parable because it happens! We’re looking to fill our dissonance and find our happiness with things that couldn’t possibly do it and in places where we couldn’t possibly find it!! We’re looking to find it somewhere other than where we lost it.
This is our natural conditioning. Often times we mindlessly pursue the ideals that our society or culture values, but we don’t really know ourselves until we accomplish those objectives and experience their pallor. This is the mid life crisis, isn’t it? How cliché is that? The man, or woman, finally arrives at that place – the house, the kids, the job, etc…. And it is only then that they realize this is not that which fulfills them. What now?
What now? Where do we go to find our happiness? Somewhere else? Some new thing? House? Car? New partner? New dog? Is it in “taking stock of our lives”? I say, “leave your livestock alone”, create the awareness to listen to your own complaints, and remove them! Understand at a very deep level that they are all b.s., and they are all self created! Straight talk! 🙂
Wherever you go, there you are!
