'Identification with your mind creates an
opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions
that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between
you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God.'
(Eckhart Tolle - 'The Power of Now')
Prejudices are useful things. They are generalisations, concepts we extrapolate from our own experiences or things we read and hear, concepts which help us somehow make sense of the world. Our brain is conceived to fill in the blanks, the brain is abhorrent of chaos, hence we feel better if we understand something, if we reach a conclusion, if we put a label on things. But relying only on prejudices is a dangerous thing. It reduces us to mere reactors, we don't try to understand a situation, we just react to it, the way we always had. And sometimes, we can be wrong...
I recently lost my inner balance a little bit. Again! Oh well, isn't that what life's all about, losing balance and getting it back?... Anyway, I was going through a minor crisis and tired of annoying my friends with the exhausts of my mind, I decided to go back to the Power of Now, a book which I've read last year and which impacted me positively at the time . It's fascinating how this time, because I needed it from a different perspective, I noticed different things than the first time I read it. This time I got to thinking about labelling.
I am guilty of labelling things, people, situations, countries, nations, meteorological phenomenons, you name it. Don't know, I guess it makes me feel better if I file something away and use it next time to make decisions. But does it really make me feel better? It got me thinking about all the times I assumed things which may not have been true, how I am devoiding my life of discovering new things, of that feeling of wonder, I am not allowing people to surprise me. I realised I am not courageous, but coward for using labels for everything around me. So I took a big decision: I will try to live in a world without labels and let it surprise me.
'Why does everything has to be black or white?' I complained to a friend the other day.
'It seems to me you're the one seeing life in black and white.' he answered and that's all he had to say.
Hello grey!
(Eckhart Tolle - 'The Power of Now')
Prejudices are useful things. They are generalisations, concepts we extrapolate from our own experiences or things we read and hear, concepts which help us somehow make sense of the world. Our brain is conceived to fill in the blanks, the brain is abhorrent of chaos, hence we feel better if we understand something, if we reach a conclusion, if we put a label on things. But relying only on prejudices is a dangerous thing. It reduces us to mere reactors, we don't try to understand a situation, we just react to it, the way we always had. And sometimes, we can be wrong...
I recently lost my inner balance a little bit. Again! Oh well, isn't that what life's all about, losing balance and getting it back?... Anyway, I was going through a minor crisis and tired of annoying my friends with the exhausts of my mind, I decided to go back to the Power of Now, a book which I've read last year and which impacted me positively at the time . It's fascinating how this time, because I needed it from a different perspective, I noticed different things than the first time I read it. This time I got to thinking about labelling.
I am guilty of labelling things, people, situations, countries, nations, meteorological phenomenons, you name it. Don't know, I guess it makes me feel better if I file something away and use it next time to make decisions. But does it really make me feel better? It got me thinking about all the times I assumed things which may not have been true, how I am devoiding my life of discovering new things, of that feeling of wonder, I am not allowing people to surprise me. I realised I am not courageous, but coward for using labels for everything around me. So I took a big decision: I will try to live in a world without labels and let it surprise me.
'Why does everything has to be black or white?' I complained to a friend the other day.
'It seems to me you're the one seeing life in black and white.' he answered and that's all he had to say.
Hello grey!
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