We are on a path to shed the light on the well-being in our life. Well-Being exists. However, we don’t select the choices that take us there and, we are not clear about how to unlock the doors that separate us from it. Step by step we place in your hand the keys needed to open these doors. Not necessarily that all the doors are closed but sometimes you don’t know some of the doors so, you don’t select to enter those doors. We had clarified 5 doors and their keys till now; thoughts, select thoughts, expand choices, body and soul In this chat we are continuing on clarifying the sixth door and its key: our environment. Our environment has 4 main factors that influence our life continuously: (1)circumstances, (2)people, (3)things, and (4)events. In the last chat The Sixth key to Well-Being, The Environment – Part I, we had clarified some solutions for our circumstances and the people around us in case that they negatively affects our well-being. You need first to understand how each factor affects you then, you can control its effect on your life.
(3) Things
Usually denote objects that are not alive so, humans, animals and plants are not part of this stimulus. However, those things are important to our life as the alive parts of it. Moreover, they equally influence our life as living things do. They might be subtle or big. realized by everyone or only by you. Examples of those things that influence your life and are appearing to everyone are your outfit, your car, and your home. Those things in your life that are only apparent to you includes your bed, your computer and your coffee machine. How much your coffee machine and your bed can make or ruin your day. If you had a bad night sleep or an awful morning coffee, this can negatively impact your whole day. Accept what you have in hand from the things.
Acceptance is usually mistakenly taken that if you accept you will stay in what you accept. Acceptance means not resisting what you have or refusing to admit it while at the same time targeting a new better thing in your life. Rejection and resistance takes all your power either in anger vented to the air or in hiding a real situation. Intend to get a better coffee machine or bed whenever possible but meanwhile be thankful to what in hand and stop wasting your energy on resisting and fighting it. This idea can be applied to anything in your life.
Apparent Things
The apparent things besides of their direct effect on you, are a method of judgement by some people on you. It is your own very problem if you allowed those praising or sarcastic words to touch your pride either by elevating or lowering it. You are the value and whatever outside you is only decoration.
But why do the physical owned things have this value in our life?
Well, it is a long way of programming through different chronological steps in our life. Those perceptions that we apply on the value of the things outside us reached to be spontaneous judgments that pop up in our mind without thinking. Think of this quote ” First Impressions Lasts”. If you believe in it, then the physical appearance has been deeply programmed in your first layers. It starts from the evaluation you hear from your family about certain things a WOW car, a poor car or, a luxury district vs a poor district. a fortunate kid or person vs a miserable one.
In every such situation, implicitly, you tend to judge yourself as good or accepted. Otherwise, you start to feel pity for yourself or outrageous against the community that is unfair to you. Those feelings doesn’t have much sense in the early childhood up to the school years. It is only emphasized by the similar reactions from other people in the neighborhood or the playground. The real feeling of discrimination based on physical or material things starts to appear with the school years.
Life Example:
Each child try to prove himself to be the best, his outfit, his copybook or pencil. He or she is backed by either the family praising that you have the best or bitterness that this our max and we can get you no better things. With time, unless the students are really a homogeneous group, the separation is in place.
The worst case scenario if this student falls in the trap of being a bully or being bullied. There is a third category who are scared from being in any of these groups so it starts telling lies to build a shelter of an imaginary world around him or her.
Inside this shelter lives a teared down self frightened self. It was teared down by its own thoughts that was programmed along the years. This shelter continues to deepen with the growing up and the selection of a partner, a job or a profession, and a life style or a neighbor hood.
Can we transcend this perceptions about the apparent physical things in our world?
Whenever you ask if you can, always answer yourself YES I can. This question and answer separates a troublesome life from a blessed one. Life is not always hard in every material aspect but maybe in some. However your life is, now you have a deliberate choice to change it where you want a change.
The first step is to catch where you have a viewpoint about a physical thing that you want to transcend. Examples here are at 2 sides. Your view of someone in this situation and your view of yourself in this situation. We can start by when you look down to someone who is not wearing a branded cloth or watch. Even if this is not in your conscious mind, you have the same look to yourself and you expect it from the people around you when you are cloth or watch are not branded. Also, we sometimes judge a luxury car owner as a great person or a mean person. We have the same point of view towards our car. So, you target a certain brand of luxurious cars to be labeled great or you avoid a certain brand not to think of yourself as a mean person.
Second Step,
chose to trust in yourself as it is and do not be afraid of vulnerability. Believe that you are the value and you can create anything you want in your world from zero. It just needs intention and to start. Today you are at zero tomorrow you are a hero.
Third Step,
Look to the other people as valuable in their own as humans without things. This can be achieved only after the second step when you are not afraid to be exposed to people without your things buffer.
If you want to be inspired how to make a huge change, you can read Tony Robins story here. His mother fed him a perspective that he at most will grow up to be a truck driver as his father. He changed his life by asking How I can live a different timeline? How to have a different destiny? He ended up with a net worth of 600 Million Dollars.
The Global perception of Things
We can’t completely transcend our view of the things in our life without subsiding our desires that was stimulated by the media. The media energizes our point of view of certain things so we long for it. After some time, this longing appears as coming from inside us as a necessity. When we manage to own this physical thing e.g. this house in that neighborhood, we feel superior to others who hadn’t reached this same thing.
Here we need to differentiate between the desire of moving forward in life which is mandated by life it self and the desire of having the same thing to feel better than others. You deserve to live better everyday. The quality of your life naturally goes up everyday unless you resist this moving forward by wasting your energy on fighting your current conditions. What need to be transcended is your desire for things to be better compared to others. This road of comparison will never take you to fulfillment.
In Conclusion
Material Things are important to our life and growth as well as the humans and living things. Willing for a better home, car or a coffee machine is a great motivation for your growth. But, the intention behind this willingness makes all the difference. If I intend to prosper, grow and improve to serve life and myself better, that’s the track to self fulfillment. When the intention behind those material needs is to be better compared to other humans, that’s a self destructive route that will drain your energy, resources and time. Moreover it will take you no where as forever you will see or imagine someone is better than you. So you will never be satisfied however material things you had accumulated. Stay Safe and Enjoy every moment of the now.