Prime Path 08:
Side Page 01
It's Hopeless? Really?
Why would I include the "it's hopeless" page? Haven't things been depressing enough?
The reason that I need to include "it's hopeless"--that is, the stuff about you being born, spending your entire life, and then dying, in a world of people that's pretty much fucked up, no matter what you do or don't do--is because some of us entertain a covert notion that we're supposed to fix everything up.
Some of us, deep down inside, might feel that, due to some deeply held and unexpressed personal weakness, we're responsible for the fucked up condition of the world of people--and by "responsible", I mean to blame. We might feel, underneath it all, that we've been too flawed--too lazy, ignorant, cowardly, or immature, or whatever--to have done anything about it.
Various religious, spiritual or life coaching disciplines have even generated the idea that you, as an individual, are somehow the creator of all of it, or that you are somehow responsible for it all, and that anything other than that is merely an illusion.
You do filter and interpret reality, of course. We'll talk about this down the road.
But you did not create the reality that you are filtering and interpreting. There is a real world out there. In that real world, something is not working. In that real world, most people's lives do not work. No matter who you are or what you do during your life, you cannot alter or change that aspect of reality.
In that sense, then, it's hopeless.
While this might occur as dismal, dark, or depressing, it is, in fact, freeing. You don't need to concern yourself with changing the world of people, or fixing the world of people, or making the world of people, taken as a whole, a better place. I know you've been told that you need to make the world of people a better place. No, you don't! You are not responsible for these things. You are not accountable for these things. You do not need to answer for these things. You would be an arrogant fool to examine your conduct to see how it is that you have failed concerning these things. Do you get this? Do you?
Wallowing around in the muddy molasses of blaming yourself for the "oh, isn't it awful" of the world of people turns into a rationale for playing small.
You are only responsible for the things you can actually accomplish. You are only accountable for the things you can actually accomplish.
One of the two things for which you can workably and effectively take responsibility, and for which you can workably and effectively accept accountability, is the quality of your own life.
The other of the two things for which you can workably and effectively take responsibility, and for which you can workably and effectively accept accountability, is the contribution you are making to the quality of the lives of the people around you.
As we will see, for a grown up human being, the quality of your life and the quality of the lives of the people around you turn out to be the same thing--but that's senior coaching that we will get to down the road.
(You will note that we have left an out: how you define "the people around you." Play big, and a lot of people will be included in "the people around you". More on this later.)
We're about to get to how to deal with these three potentially depressing truths that we just dredged up and splashed across your realm of awareness. But you need to get this:
When you accept that it's hopeless--and it is--then you are freed up to devote your attention to things that you can really impact, and to things regarding which you can make a real difference, and that's a good thing!
Get it? Yay!
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