CREED

Question everything. Especially those things you believe in most strongly.

If you experience any misery or despair in life, it is there.

That which you hold dearest in life, that which is completely non-negotiable, you are a slave to.

For example, if your love relationship is the most important thing to you, what would you do without it?

Doesn’t bearing thinking about it, does it?

But failing to think about it, failing to question it, doesn’t make it any more secure. The fact is, that while you may hope that it is ‘for ever’, every relationship that has ever been has ended, sooner or later.

Fairy tale romances only exist in fairy tales.

Ask yourself, “Just why is this relationship so important to me? Why don’t I think I could live without him/her? And given that, unless I die first, I will have to live without him/her, at some point, how can I be as secure as possible in life on my own?”

…………………

Of course, a creed is usually a political or philosophical idea about something. It may be the way in which you represent a certain group of people: men, women; young, old; blacks, whites; Jews, Christians, Muslims.

And the principle stands: the more negative you feel about something, the more negative you will feel. Well, if you have a certain idea about a certain group of people, certain emotions will certainly come up for you, any time you think about them. Which probably aren’t exactly pleasant.

Let go of the certainty, and you are free of this; otherwise, you are certainly trapped.

…………………

The next thing I learn may well refute everything I have learned previously.

Or it could merely confirm it all.

Or something in between.

The possibilities are infinite.

Or may well be limited by the narrowness of my thinking.

Or not.

As the case may or may not be.

Question everything

…………………

Question everything.

Including, whether you should in fact question everything.

Or, to put it another way, if you have a tendency to question everything in life, and you are miserable, you may well want to come up with some different questions.

Instead of asking, “Why is everyone out to get me?” or “Why does life suck?” ask yourself, “Why am I miserable all the time? Is this how I want to experience life? If it isn’t, what would I rather feel? Happy and joyful? Okay, what is stopping me from feeling happy and joyful?”

Find everything that is stopping you from feeling happy and joyful – “Life sucks”, “There is nothing to be happy and joyful about”, “People are bastards” – and question it: “Is it really like that? Is there possibly another way of looking at this?”

Question it, until you realise that it is all made-up nonsense that you no longer care to indulge in.

Yes, I know, this isn’t easy. Because we are not trained to think like this. Instead of looking for the solution we usually focus all of our time and energy on the problem.

When you were a child, did any of your parents or teachers ever ask you? “Yes, and how are you going to solve this? I want 10 solutions in the next 10 minutes. That’s a solution a minute. Come on, let’s get to it.”

What a difference it would have made had they done so.

Now, I’m not usually one for ‘should’s’ or ‘shouldn’t’s’, but I am going to make an exception in this case.

Every child should be trained to find the solution to every problem they come up with, from the moment they are able to talk.

The essential and fundamental nature of education should be as follows:

“How are we going to make it work?”

In other words: for there to be a successful resolution, what would that take?

And, maybe then, life would start working for all of us.

© Phillip A. Klein March 2008