Know what sucks? When you understand how decision making works. Then you can’t allow yourself to get away with anything. On top of that, you have to have compassion for those who are oblivious to their own lives because you know that’s mainly everyone, because this is what we’re born into.
Actually, I take that back. It doesn’t suck. Not at all. It only sounds like it sucks. It sounds like it sucks because it sounds like understanding how we work is a choice, which implies a burden. When we see something about us we want to change and we choose away from it, as opposed to understanding it, we repress it. We run from the fact of who we are, calling it change for the better. And that, naturally, creates difficulties. We become a bigger burden to ourselves, take it out on other people, and they likely won’t tell us we’re jerks. They’ll keep it to themselves, seethe inside, and vent to other people about us behind our backs. We’re a funny creature, humans, what can I tell you?
When one flows as choiceless understanding, there is no opposite, no other way to be to compare you with. When there is no other way of being to compare you with, there is no person in existence. There is only oneness, which is Love. And so, you understand these alleged other people around you as you understand oneself. Understanding is immediate action. Choiceless. Understanding and Loving are scents in the same perfume. Such a one’s heart beats with true compassion.
Comparison, you see, creates friction: the friction between who you are and who you wish you were. You wish you were “better,” more compassionate, but you’re not. So you pretend or you practice it, which is the same thing. You mistake narcissism for oneness and eventually you collapse under the weight of your lies. You stop smiling through your anger. You are anger without a perky face. In that moment you are real with yourself. If you don’t hightail it to the next mask like a hermit crab trading homes, you have an opportunity to unravel anger, to truly understand yourself and therefore everyone else.
Ah. There’s that authentic smile you’ve been training for. Because hitting bottom ruins you.
And, trust me, you could use a good ruining. I speak from experience.