08.19.08
A Cold Dose of Reality
We all go through the ups and downs of life. The ups are usually the easy parts. The downs, while difficult, are usually necessary to help us grow and learn.
I recently took a close look at one of those “down” periods of my life and something struck me. Sometimes our emotions get the better of us and even though we are right there, our perception of the reality that we are living is not always in tune with what is actually happening around us. Our emotions blind us and we fail to see things clearly. And worse even is the fact that when we fail to see things clearly we often mistake shadows for reality and react inappropriately because we are reacting to the illusions brought about by our own insecurities.
I am still trying to reconcile all of this, and make sense of those dark days. Still, I can’t help but wonder about other significant moments in my life. How sure can I be that my perception is anything more than an illusion born of my secret insecurities? Are the most difficult times in my life all brought about when I reacted to illusion instead of reality? Can we ever escape our own insecurities enough to experience pure reality?
I don’t really know the answers to these questions, but I suspect it all comes back to one simple tenet of life: no real growth can happen until we trust and respect ourselves by being honest with ourselves in all matters.
And one last question: when did life get so complicated? I thought we were supposed to get more answers as we grew older, not have to question all the answers we already had.
