The power of granting our attention

There are a lot of facts, and there’s our decision on which to give our attention.
Do we focus on the mosquito or in the landscape? do we keep thinking on the guy that cut the line or in the show we are attending? Is it more important the car that closed our way or feeling healthy and warm while driving?
From all the possibilities, are we following what is better for us? if not, why? whol told us not to?

Hard choice

We can convince ourselves of anything we want to. Everything can be good or bad for us depending on the reasons we give ourselves. We manipulate the truth according to our short term wishes. But for true happiness, we should have the honesty tho do things we don’t want, because we know in the end is going to be good for us, and to decline things we want, but we know are going to cause suffering. Easy to say, hard to apply.

A dream for the future

What do we usually keep moving for the future instead of living it the whole time? Happiness, isn’t it?
I used to think and hear a lot of when I get, when I achieve, when we accomplish, when X arrives, etc. We keep pushing forward to be happy, generally after a milestone that will always have a new one when we get there, and that’s only if we get there.
We always have the chance to enjoy what we are doing, living, seeing, hearing, feeling but we forbid ourselves until…….?

Film and not photo

Everything is in constant movement, even ourselves. Each second things change: we are older, our hair grows, we burn calories, we know something else, the weather changes, we see something we haven’t seen from where we are standing, we step where we never stood before and so on. No second in our life will be the same as any other second, even if we wanted to repeat any second in our life, it’s impossible, at least time won’t be the same.
We are experiencing small changes that we almost can not perceive, but sometimes bigger changes occur even without our consent. We lose something or somebody, we are transferred to other cities, we get wet in the rain, we catch a cold, and so on.
So, if everything changes, and we can not control most of the changes, why we try to live like a photo forcing things to stand still? Our live is not a photo we like, is a film that is rolling, let’s see what comes next.

Fear

I heard from a teacher something impressive: fear is linked to things we think we have to protect, the more we believe we have to protect, the more fear we have. Its impressive for two things, first because fear inhibit us from doing a lot of things, and things we want or we would like, and second because we are convinced that we can have control over what happens. So in the end, we don’t do things just because we forbid ourselves with no real reason. We won’t speak to a person because we fear what this person may think of us, we won’t invest in a new venture because we fear we’ll lost the money we saved for some time, and so on. What do we think we are protecting?

Lying to ourselves

For me, the main reason for the course of the events that we want or prefer to avoid, is less related with actions we develop and more with our real intentions. Clearly is not the same hurting somebody intentionally than without knowing, the intention generates a lot of bad feelings, bad thinking, and for sure even without success the harm will be done, but to ourselves. We can lie to everybody else, but we can not lie to ourselves. When we do something, we can do all the planning, actions, and even effort, but without the real good intention, our body, our mind, our energy won’t be pushing for the same outcome.
But for sure, good intentions without any action won’t take us anywhere either.

Expectations

I went to a meditation retreat in Thailand and witnessed exemplary lives, I went to see the sunrise and got only rain, I thought it was going to be difficult but I almost ran away, I went looking for a small part to complete my puzzle and I got a completely different game, I went looking for a Thai monk and found lovely European people, I went to meet an enlightened and a dog bit me, I went for breakfast and got a wheat beverage, I went to a tropical country and had to use winter jacket, I went for explanations and received smiles, I went to take pictures and was the main attraction, I went to be happier and got control of my mind, I went for a glass of water and got my head shaved. That’s what happen when you have expectations.

Possibilities

In the last months I made a great trip around some Arab and Asian countries. This exposure, made me realize a lot of things, such as the reason why I didn’t went to China (something I didn’t understand when happened), and my main conclusion was how self-limited we are. After being amazed by 5.000 year old inexplicable constructions, after witnessing one of the most desirable metropolis in the middle of the merciless dessert, after being surprised by creativity without resources and after understanding the wealth of the poor, I can only say we limit ourselves to what we know and to what we think we deserve, only that we know almost nothing, and what we think we deserve is only a small fraction of what we could have.