Making the Most of What One Already Has

Most people think that all their problems will be solved if they just had "More" -- of anything and everything, never realizing it could be a double-edged sword that is killing them.  Thus despite being morbidly obese, they think they need even more food -- and more time sitting and watching tv -- as the answer to their problem, if they even realize they have a problem.  

Many don't -- and think it is everyone else who has a problem, while they are as perfect as one can imagine themselves being.  To remain in such company, requires one to distort all their other perceptions, in order to comply with their insistence that they are the only one who is normal, and there is something wrong with everything else in the world.

At that point, many people move on -- because of the tremendous drain of energies required to support, and be supportive of such a world view -- in the light of everything else saying "It just isn't so."  So in order to maintain such illusions and delusions, such societies and circles have to become more exclusive, eventually and inevitably isolating such individuals from the joy of shared experiences and fullest participation that is the hallmark of life in society and civilization.  

Among the old, they may no longer have any contact with anyone else anymore -- except for an army of professional caregivers to enable them in their stubbornness to live life their way -- on their own terms, without any acknowledgment or compromise with any other reality -- because now that they are old (senior), it's "their way or the highway" for everybody else, because one thing for certain, is that they will not change -- for anybody else, but even more importantly, for themselves who stand to benefit the most from doing so.

Unfortunately, one observes many lives being lived that way -- apart and insensitive to what is actually going on in the world -- always as a war of that individual, with everyone and everything else in the world.  That is the conditioning they've assimilated, which makes everything they do into a battle, and unnecessarily a hassle -- in everything they do, and so of course they are worn out and beaten down way before their time.

That is the obvious difference between successful living -- and unsuccessful living, which prematurely ages one.  Most people are not just innocent bystanders in the outcomes of their lives.  Everything they do, has made it so.  When one realizes that, then everything one does, takes on a tremendous significance -- and will not say that nothing matters anymore, or can make a difference -- because everything that individual does, makes a difference.  

That is more than just wishful-thinking -- but in seeing the connection, between one thing, and everything else -- and recognizing that it is the proper balance of one thing to every other, that is the proper relationship (ratio), that makes things work -- or fail, and not just indiscriminately "more."  That rarely solves anything, much less the problem one thinks that is the solution for -- and so despite their "more" effort, sweat and pain, the results are not forthcoming, or obvious -- to anyone else.

That is the difference between those who are changing (improving), and those who aren't -- it is strikingly evident to everyone else as well -- and not just one's private fantasy and delusions that they have in fact, conquered the entire world, and now the universe -- while everyone else is deluded, in not agreeing that that is so.  Quite commonly in fact, one threatens to do bodily harm to any and all who do not agree with what they are telling them -- as proof of those truths.  It may be to drop down and give them 20 pushups to show their obeisance and compliance with that as the unquestioned truth.

That is conformance to authority -- and not the truth, that doesn't require the suspension of every other truth to consider.  In fact, every other truth and authentic experience, will conform and confirm the new -- if it is valid.  It is not just a learned and remembered truth -- having no validity in fact and experience -- which so much thinking and writing is about.

The critical faculties of the human body are contained and effected at the extremities -- where the senses are acute for those purposes -- but most lose that sensitivity rather than hone them, largely through disuse, neglect, and taking them for granted that they don't need to be maintained, nor can they be improved.  Yet that is what is most important to improve, as milestones for the measure of quality of life -- which is the bottom line in every human life and experience.

The quality, implies the right quantity -- while no gross amount of quantity, can ensure quality.  It doesn't matter how much of the wrong thing one does; they will not get the right result -- that even a very little of the right thing, will.  That is what one should understand before doing anything -- and not just think that doing anything, is sufficient to get the right result.  The world doesn't work that way.  One should pay attention and observe, listen, and when the understanding is clear and complete, then it produces its own right action -- and not that one has to try something extraordinary to achieve it. 

But no amount of not paying attention, not observing, and not listening -- will do them any good.