After years of reading countless spiritual books, reading blogs, listening to podcasts and watching Youtube video’s on spirituality, self-love, mindfulness and presence, I have found a common mistake in almost all media. It’s not that the authors or creators do this deliberately, yet, whilst trying to get the point across they forgot to state this very obvious and important fact.
The fact I am alluding to is that most of us live in a 9 to 5 world. The existence where we don’t have an abundance of funds, we do get sick, we can work bad jobs that don’t please us (or our job situations change), we do get into crappy relationships due to poor choices and we can also have friends or family that are pain’s in our asses. Furthermore, most of us have chosen a city or suburban life where we have to work, struggle in traffic, coexist with others that don’t have the same beliefs, whilst dealing with the political and social conflictions there are in life. Ppheewww, let’s take a breath…
Because of the world that we live in it is hard to keep up with social/work expectations, health, fitness, family, moral and political justice beliefs and so on and so forth. And as much as we would like to ignore the exhausting and draining Jenny in accounts, that gets right in our face and constantly talks about how bad the corporate business life is, and how awful her life is compared to everyone, and how no one listens to her and blah, blah, blah… We do end up sitting quietly and listening to her because we are introverted and nice. Plus, her boyfriend is our boss… And although some will say ‘well why don’t you remove yourself from the situation’ or ‘you should say something’ the fact is, that life isn’t that easy. And although you personally may think that your mind works logically around such issues, so does Jenny.
The city and suburban life throws us constant new challenges every day and sometimes we handle these challenges well, whilst other times we handle it horribly. Therefore, when you read a book or an amazing piece of artwork created by an insightful, inspiring and beautiful presence such as ‘The Lonely Spaceman’, who says that you should just be present all the time, part of you knows that this is just simply horse s#%t. Well, I am here to tell you that you are 100% correct. It’s ridiculously unrealistic.
Being in the 9 to 5 world (I use this term loosely) means that you will be facing different challenges every day. So when that rich guru who lives in nature whilst meditating for 10 hours a day tells you that you need to chill out, you simply want to tell them to f#$k off and get real. The reality is, if they were living your life they too would be facing the same struggles and range of emotions.
So how do we find an inner balance? Well, we do this by not doing it.
To live (and I mean truly live) on this earth it is expected that bad things will happen. People may die whilst work/life/exercise/health/family/money balances will always shift and never be perfect. And of course, when this happens, you can’t always be a calm and present person. This isn’t to say that we can’t lessen the impact of our ego, yet chasing perfection is like chasing a rainbow.
Budda himself found that being rich didn’t work for him, so, he became a commoner and was poor for a period of time to see if this type of lifestyle fulfilled him. This didn’t work either. It was only when he found a peaceful medium (or his perception of middle class) that he chilled the f#^k out and became a highly spiritual dude. He wasn’t born with mindfulness, he had to walk the path like all of us do until he found the balance that worked for him.
The point: Spiritual Facebook entrepreneur can’t reveal that they get angry, frustrated, depressed or upset because it lessens the projection they are trying to portray about how perfect they are. And they need to project this because they know that humanity buys into it. Well, I am here to tell you that perfection is utter bullsh%t. You can go through any and all emotions as often as you want and still be spiritual. In fact, whilst on a spiritual journey you may go through a range of emotions at an intensity that you have never felt in your whole life. Denying these emotions are the most non-spiritual thing you can possible do. Instead, embracing them, respecting them and acknowledging them is a great way towards healing. It’s just not spoken about often enough because if Echart Toll told you he was a moody prick at time’s he wouldn’t sell as many books.
The Lonely Spaceman 