Distraction Lurks, Temptation Screams, Challenges Arise
Cage the Elephant got it right, Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked. In whatever accent you read that in one truth stands out. Only those courageous enough to realize they’re wicked will face restlessness through the challenges that arise. What happens to those who say they are not? Are they resting with worries small enough to conquer while they sleep? Or is their blindness slowly letting the elephant in the room cage them in? It seems that the longer we wait for answers to appear while standing back, the more doubtful the transition of being liberated seems to be. Liberated from what exactly? The communist regime amalgamated with the democracy you live in? The wrongs that others have led you to believe you are fully to blame for while knowing we are all to blame? How about the lack of knowing you are out of reach with the infinite, so you wait for years seeking what to do without responding to your calling? Or… realizing that every nightmare you have encountered and the battles faced have been nothing short of you being afraid of what knows you best. Yourself. Although distractions and temptations lurk all around our existence, we know what those are without fully knowing where they stem from. Our body remembers what our mind forgets deep in our unconscious.
Perhaps the solution revolves around questions rather than individual answers
Well, obviously you might tell yourself, but the lack of awareness that compensates for the overconfidence in what seems evident might be in fact our biggest distraction. A few years ago I attended a course that trained people how to properly work with lasers. Not the ones you buy at the supermarket, but the ones you need to be licensed to use. They went over the importance of safety goggles and being aware of the dangers these instruments have. At the end of the course they demonstrated the statistics of the accidents they’ve had over the years. Most common example was not using eyewear and scientists losing their eye by having a laser beam penetrate through their cornea and endangering the site while instilling fear in those that they have worked with for so many years. Most of these accidents occurred to veterans in the field, not amateurs. Why is that you may ask yourself? When people get too comfortable in what they know can hurt them, they lose track on how to properly care for it and in return allow themselves to get damaged without fully realizing it. In that case, why work with something that has the potential to destroy you? Ask yourself that question next time you are staring to your reflection in the mirror, knowing you are that something.
Knowing your goals aid you in understanding the process of imperfection when one falls to temptation
Narcissism can be our biggest enemy when having pity for the falls of our temptations but casting judgement upon those done by others we can’t understand. To be fair, we don’t know their intentions. Does it matter? I believe a part does but that is my opinion. What if the person does not want to get better? Or, what if the person doesn’t know how? Perhaps sees no hope in the dark tunnel they have been circling for years? What if they are lying to themselves, but they are too naïve and proud to recognize it? Many questions come to mind, but casting judgement upon what is unknown to you may say more about one’s own insecurities rather than the intended wisdom that was sought out. How so? We are not perfect, which therefore a reflection of oneself is being communicated by the judgement being called. That is being blinded by hypocrisy. We fall and get back up just to fall again, we learn to conquer temptations on certain days but it seems the more they rise the higher the gauge gets to signaling it’s explosion. What is one able to do about that? Releasing the same energy that has been used for short-term pleasure to be translocated by other means of long-term benefit, fighting against the entropy of life. Can we do this perfectly? No. The faster we realize this, the faster we are able to recognize and perhaps aid others that are struggling with their own temptations. There is love and forgiveness in that.
