If you have a conscious or unconscious affect on what you observe, part of the meditative process has to include a significant level to attention to the moment. Part of that attentive process is to check the level of expectation you have. Sometimes it seems like it's an effort to complete the most basic of tasks, sometimes it just seem like everything is a fight. Well it's probably true for the series of events that you are paying attention to, however there are also good things that happen and some things do come easy. Why does it seem that all of the bad stuff seems to happen all the time? Well, because that's where your attention exists. Do you get up in the morning thankful you can see the sun and clouds, get up and walk to the kitchen, happy to have food and water? The answer for most of us is no.
Are you a perpetual life discounter? The good things are supposed to happen and the bad things are a constant source of angst. Everything good is discounted and everything bad only happens because you are the universal target of abuse.
In reading a book entitled Good to Great it talked about the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral Jim Stockdale was the highest-ranking military officer ever captured during the Vietnam War. Tortured repeatedly and held in a Vietnamese prisoner camp for 8 years, he gave us a lesson on how to deal with adversity. When asked who didn't make it in the prison camp, he immediately said “that’s easy it was the optimists, they didn't make it,” which sounds ironic. He stated they were the ones that said “we will get out by Easter.” Easter came and went, they continued to say, “we will be out by Christmas.”....Christmas came and went. Eventually they died of a broken heart.
Mr. Stockdale explained two factors helped him eventually survive long enough to be rescued and eventually become a best selling author and lecturer. The first, brutal honesty for his state of affairs in present time and the second, an unwavering faith that he would some how prevail in the end.
This two-edged sword of philosophy seems to be a contradiction. However what I believe Mr. Stockdale is trying to convey is that the source of your power isn’t in creating false positive concepts, i.e. optimism. But, to dig deeper into your soul and realize that you will be successful and have the faith that you will create a way. We all can pull various meanings from Mr. Stockdale’s experience, but it all comes down to how we react to what we consider to be the positive and negative things that happen in our life. How are we going to deal with them? Drop your Grounding Cord, get rooted, be honest about your situation and them move forward and draw strength from your ability to look at a situation directly and know that you will find a way around, under, above or through to the other side.
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