Hello there and welcome my friends, family and fellow knowledge seekers, I have a short thought I want to share with you today. EVERYONE SEEKS CONTROL. It starts from an early age in life. As children we seek to gain control of our lives, seeing parents as tyrants despite their best intentions, striving for independence and always looking forward to "growing up". Those of you with your own children I'm sure know that it is difficult raising children because they see you as the enemy at times, and some kids try to assert their control OVER the parent.
As adults our personal desire for control over others and situations can lead to indecency and irrational thought processes as it seems to me that a lot of people only see in others what can be done for "me", forgetting the humanity that we all share in common. I've kinda spoken on this before, but I want to re-iterate the fact that regular people who are NOT rich or wealthy only emulate the teachings that have been passed down from previous generations and from above, the poor emulating the wealthy, often with those bad behaviors of greed, selfishness, and over-indulgence, with far less influence being made by positive inspirations, unfortunately. It really does seem that humans are opportunistic, to say the least, and it is sad that when even otherwise good people are put into power over others, there is ALWAYS the real possibility that power will be abused.
On another note, I am indeed human and I understand the desire to want MORE. I understand the desire to want the BEST things for your family that you never had as a child. My problem is more with the fact that enough is never enough for some and many try to live well above their means. Greed really is a nasty bastard and few seem to know when enough is enough. The further we go down the slippery slide of coveting, materialism, and possessions, along with vanity and avarice... the further the individual slips away into disassociation with the fellow human race. There is no mortal among us who is better than another in the eyes of the creator, so what makes YOU so concerned with keeping up with the Jones's? Rather than constantly comparing ourselves to others in a negative way, counting all the things that you DON'T HAVE (a list that will NEVER END)... why can't we be find comfort in our blessings and be THANKFUL FOR WHAT WE DO HAVE: LIFE, LOVE, HEALTH, and CHOICE? There will ALWAYS be MORE that we want and cannot have, and those that do have all they want and more are NEVER HAPPY... because what we REALLY NEED is love, companionship, and family, along with food/water, clothing, and shelter. That's about it. Every other form of exerting control is generally about pettiness, selfishness, or greed, and unfortunately some people use forms of manipulation to control the ones they claim to love.
Am I saying that it is bad to seek control over things in life? No. I'm just saying that we have to pick our battles and respect positions of authority and not abuse the small amounts of power that we get over others, if any at all. No matter what though, we have to treat our fellow humans with dignity and respect, if possible. I know there are some people who seem stupid out there who do a whole slew of idiotic behaviors for God knows what reasons, but we have to try to understand that there are all types of people, and they are all important to the bigger plan of things. Think about it in another way, the Earth only appears to be flat because it is so big that we cannot see around the curve. Humans are sort of the same way, there are so many of us that we forget sometimes the value of one individual life and/or think that there is no purpose or grand meaning to life. We ALL have a purpose... it's our job to figure out what that purpose is.
Who is in control?
The media seeks to control your mind by telling you what to buy, how to dress and act, and what to believe. The governments seek to control your mind, money and future by brainwashing you and taxing you to death. The banks seek to control you by keeping you forever in debt. Religion seeks to control you by instilling you with fear of eternal reprisal for your "sins" (that EVERYONE does, by the way... including the perverted clergy). Parents seek to control their children, often through fear and discipline. Often control is placed upon people for what is considered the "greater good", even though more often than not, the "greater good" really isn't good at all, and it ISN'T in the best interest of the people.
In a very Buddhist way, we must seek a middle road, going neither way too far to either extreme of micro-manager in control... or recklessly out of control. Let's DISENGAGE THE AUTOPILOT and plug back into our own lives and take back control of things, but not too much, because we need all the different types of people, and we need to start figuring out ways to communicate effectively and serve the best interests of the majority without stepping on too many toes. There are ways to be tactful and say and do things without being a dick. I know we can all do it, but there are some who are just happy being assholes. Don't get hung up on them. They are important as well and we need them too. If it weren't for them, our own awakenings would never have taken place. Remember, just because we cannot see the results of our actions, doesn't mean that our positive efforts are in vain. Each of us may be small as an individual, but there are a lot of us. If everyone starts with baby steps and progressively works harder to improve the world, every day... I can only imaging how much better things could be. But let's start small... Today just do one random act of kindness and pay it forward just a little bit... Karma always rewards you in the end, if you expend positive energy, you will be rewarded in positive ways. If you expend negative energy, you will be equally rewarded in negative ways. The ONLY thing you have real control of in this life is YOU and how YOU THINK, REACT, and BEHAVE... and when you help others, you find yourself healing your own wounds and building new bridges. Take care of what you can, be aware of a lot, and worry about little. Sounds like the keys to happiness to me and staying in control of the one thing you can control, yourself.
This has been the one and only Quiet Mouse.
As adults our personal desire for control over others and situations can lead to indecency and irrational thought processes as it seems to me that a lot of people only see in others what can be done for "me", forgetting the humanity that we all share in common. I've kinda spoken on this before, but I want to re-iterate the fact that regular people who are NOT rich or wealthy only emulate the teachings that have been passed down from previous generations and from above, the poor emulating the wealthy, often with those bad behaviors of greed, selfishness, and over-indulgence, with far less influence being made by positive inspirations, unfortunately. It really does seem that humans are opportunistic, to say the least, and it is sad that when even otherwise good people are put into power over others, there is ALWAYS the real possibility that power will be abused.
On another note, I am indeed human and I understand the desire to want MORE. I understand the desire to want the BEST things for your family that you never had as a child. My problem is more with the fact that enough is never enough for some and many try to live well above their means. Greed really is a nasty bastard and few seem to know when enough is enough. The further we go down the slippery slide of coveting, materialism, and possessions, along with vanity and avarice... the further the individual slips away into disassociation with the fellow human race. There is no mortal among us who is better than another in the eyes of the creator, so what makes YOU so concerned with keeping up with the Jones's? Rather than constantly comparing ourselves to others in a negative way, counting all the things that you DON'T HAVE (a list that will NEVER END)... why can't we be find comfort in our blessings and be THANKFUL FOR WHAT WE DO HAVE: LIFE, LOVE, HEALTH, and CHOICE? There will ALWAYS be MORE that we want and cannot have, and those that do have all they want and more are NEVER HAPPY... because what we REALLY NEED is love, companionship, and family, along with food/water, clothing, and shelter. That's about it. Every other form of exerting control is generally about pettiness, selfishness, or greed, and unfortunately some people use forms of manipulation to control the ones they claim to love.
Am I saying that it is bad to seek control over things in life? No. I'm just saying that we have to pick our battles and respect positions of authority and not abuse the small amounts of power that we get over others, if any at all. No matter what though, we have to treat our fellow humans with dignity and respect, if possible. I know there are some people who seem stupid out there who do a whole slew of idiotic behaviors for God knows what reasons, but we have to try to understand that there are all types of people, and they are all important to the bigger plan of things. Think about it in another way, the Earth only appears to be flat because it is so big that we cannot see around the curve. Humans are sort of the same way, there are so many of us that we forget sometimes the value of one individual life and/or think that there is no purpose or grand meaning to life. We ALL have a purpose... it's our job to figure out what that purpose is.
Who is in control?
The media seeks to control your mind by telling you what to buy, how to dress and act, and what to believe. The governments seek to control your mind, money and future by brainwashing you and taxing you to death. The banks seek to control you by keeping you forever in debt. Religion seeks to control you by instilling you with fear of eternal reprisal for your "sins" (that EVERYONE does, by the way... including the perverted clergy). Parents seek to control their children, often through fear and discipline. Often control is placed upon people for what is considered the "greater good", even though more often than not, the "greater good" really isn't good at all, and it ISN'T in the best interest of the people.
In a very Buddhist way, we must seek a middle road, going neither way too far to either extreme of micro-manager in control... or recklessly out of control. Let's DISENGAGE THE AUTOPILOT and plug back into our own lives and take back control of things, but not too much, because we need all the different types of people, and we need to start figuring out ways to communicate effectively and serve the best interests of the majority without stepping on too many toes. There are ways to be tactful and say and do things without being a dick. I know we can all do it, but there are some who are just happy being assholes. Don't get hung up on them. They are important as well and we need them too. If it weren't for them, our own awakenings would never have taken place. Remember, just because we cannot see the results of our actions, doesn't mean that our positive efforts are in vain. Each of us may be small as an individual, but there are a lot of us. If everyone starts with baby steps and progressively works harder to improve the world, every day... I can only imaging how much better things could be. But let's start small... Today just do one random act of kindness and pay it forward just a little bit... Karma always rewards you in the end, if you expend positive energy, you will be rewarded in positive ways. If you expend negative energy, you will be equally rewarded in negative ways. The ONLY thing you have real control of in this life is YOU and how YOU THINK, REACT, and BEHAVE... and when you help others, you find yourself healing your own wounds and building new bridges. Take care of what you can, be aware of a lot, and worry about little. Sounds like the keys to happiness to me and staying in control of the one thing you can control, yourself.
This has been the one and only Quiet Mouse.
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