Why do we get distracted from our own goals and intentions? What side tracks us and throws us a curve ball? Why is it so difficult to accomplish anything? What delays us from achieving?
It is always easy to point the finger and say: “It’s his, her or their fault”. I ran out of time. I didn’t have enough money. Work comes first. The weather was too hot/cold or rainy. I got sick. The people/person I was dealing with were not seeing what I was seeing. He/she/they are dishonest and can not be dealt with. They don’t understand me or my situation. I have to take care of my husband, wife, kids, grandma first. Mercury is in retrograde. And on and on ad infinitum.
The point is, we point the finger outside of ourselves. We blame others for our failures or lack of forward motion. It is time to start looking within to see what is actually holding us back.
Example: Why is it so hard to meditate. The most common reason is our own monkey mind. Our minds are too active and we can not stop thinking, which is the goal of meditation. Why is it so difficult to take control of the mind. Usually it is because we are letting someone or something else control it.
Only a small percentage of the population is capable of having deep, regular meditations. It is time to take back control of ourselves, spot the distractions and rectify them.
First we need to see the games that are being played around us. The games that distract, divide, and delay our own development. One of the most obvious is television. It is a huge distraction that many people are involved with. Moms indoctrinate their kids at an early age to TV so they can do other things while an electronic box babysits for them. People come home from a hard days work, plop down on the couch and watch the boob tube because they are too tired to do anything else. They have put all the energy into a job that sucks the energy out of them and go home to a TV that sucks the last little bit of life out of them, watching commercials that sells them pills that alleviate their aches, pains and stresses. Life sucks, then you die.
It is not called television programming for nothing. TV has done more to misguide, distract and delay us than anything. And now it is being replaced by the internet, cell phones and other technology that keeps us going around and around in circles instead of engaging in the spiral of life.
“In order for me to do A, B has to happen first.” Is that really a true statement or just an excuse?
What can we do about it? Well, you have already started by reading this. The first thing is to notice the distraction. Do not use it as an excuse, but see it for what it is. What would you rather be doing. Focus on that.
Problem solving is one of the great challenges of living. If everything is great and going hunky dory – something happens that throws a monkey wrench into the works and you have to deal with a new challenge.
Attitude is a key factor. If our attitude is positive toward life – it seems to flow more smoothly and we have lots of synchronicities in our favor and life is a bowl of cherries. For many people life is a rat race or a battle and there is one thing after another to be dealt with. These people fall into the victim category. We all know victims of life. But it is not that simple of division between positivity and victimhood. There is a sliding scale between the two and we all fall somewhere in-between the two.
If we look at our challenges as opportunities for learning and growth that is what we get. If we look at our challenges as just more shit coming our way – that is what we get, a bowl of shit. Attitude is everything.
There is also a big difference between challenges and distractions. Often times distractions can be ignored, put on hold, delayed and sometimes dismissed. We can choose to act on a distraction or see it for what it is and move on.
Our minds work at a quantum level, whereby the slightest thing we notice out of the corner of our eye can take us in a new direction. Sometime this is a good thing, sometimes it is not. It depends on your objective. Does it serve your ultimate goal directly or indirectly? Distractions can be for our own greater good even when we can not see it. Have you ever been driving, been delayed a second or two and at the next intersection a vehicle plows through without stopping? That slight delay was not a coincidence. It is the universe rearranging itself to support your expectations. You expect to get from A to B safely and it happens time and time again. We create our own reality constantly. We just need to be more conscious of what reality we are creating for ourselves.
Ahoe,
GW