Please Stop Being Complacent With Your Life
Complacency leads to losing awareness and control.
Despite numerous messages to the contrary, you control your life.
What does complacent mean? In this context, it’s losing touch with/awareness of yourself, due to a sense of comfort and satisfaction that everything is as it should be.
And maybe it is. For a while. But inevitably, it won’t be. Comfort zones cease being comfortable and familiar. That sense of satisfaction stops feeling satisfying because of tangibles, intangibles, or both.
Why? Because of the only constant in the Universe. Change.
Change is inevitable. It can, will, and does occur. Some you can control and direct. But a lot of it you have no control over at all.
Certain groups and individuals love to weaponize that lack of control for their selfish desires. They do so by placing blame on one group or another for why your life sucks and suggesting that suppressing that group – while supporting their goals – is best for you and your life.
Outside influences can impact your inner world. They can cause you to be complacent with your life – because they convince you It’s not yours to control. They suggest instead that if you let them have control, they’ll take care of you.
When you’re 11, and unable to live without the boundaries and guidance of your parents/guardians, that’s one thing. Once you’re an adult – you are empowered and capable of choosing what’s best for you and your life.
The choice of not being complacent, however, feels like it comes with strings attached to it.
The utterly arbitrary “norms” of society and culture
About 40 years ago, you were rather massively limited in how wide an audience you could reach in one shot.
Even through mediums like TV and radio, you had a range that was generally regional, and maybe national at best. Even then, it was only during very specific windows of time – like advertisements or newscasts.
Then the internet came into being. Now you have a resource for instantaneous reach globally to any given audience.
This has led to the creation of a whole new class of demagogues, talking heads, and opinionated “experts” with a platform to tell you how it is. And because fact-checking – and often science – have been increasingly disregarded or discredited, a new “normal” is created.
What’s more, these people “in power” try to sell you and me on the value of remaining complacent. This is how it’s always been, and you should accept it for what it is. Look closer, though, and the lie in that idea is obvious and blatant.
This is not a digression. I’m bringing this up because when you and I become complacent with the outside picture of the world we’re presented – that leads to complacency in our lives and choices we do and don’t make.
What that means is that you and I allow our control to be relaxed in the name of complacency. And maybe sometimes that’s okay. But inevitably, it won’t be.
What does being complacent with your life mean?
I know a lot of people who spend a lot of time unhappy.
They’re in unsatisfying relationships, uncomfortable jobs, unideal living situations, and/or finding it hard to feel truly satisfied with their life.
Yet they’re complacent because they believe that they have all that’s available, or all that they deserve, or that they should accept what they have and not ask for more.
The arbitrary “norms” of society and culture can be demanding. And if you accept them as the truth – then you open the door to complacency in your life.
This can also occur when you don’t live by the “norms” of culture and society. Accepting that you will earn less doing your work and always be on the outside looking in – for example – is a form of complacency in your life, too.
So, what does being complacent with your life mean? It means you’ve allowed yourself to live by rote, routine, and or habit. Ergo, you’re not working to be actively consciously aware – and thus, mindful.
When this happens, it’s easy to allow yourself to be satisfied with “good enough”, “how it should be”, and the like. Your complacency with your life means you accept all limits and limitations, that you deserve less than him or her, and other factors that keep you disempowered.
That’s what complacency in your life is all about. Not taking the empowerment that’s yours – no matter who you are. It’s accepting that you’re unworthy or undeserving of it.
Take “woke” as an ultimate example of disempowerment
All offense to those who think otherwise – but how can you possibly see the idea of being “woke” – conscious, aware, and awake – as bad?
Seriously – if the opposite is being complacent, complicit, and a sheeple – which it is – then woke is naught but good.
Do you know why they try to paint “woke” as a negative? Because being “woke” means being empowered. And when you’re empowered, you don’t want to be asleep. That leads to these demagogues losing the control they think they have – or that they want to have.
You’re also told that we live in a world of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. The “woke” crowd will take away what’s yours.
Explain how inclusivity takes anything from anyone? You can’t because it doesn’t. Every way that you’re told “woke” people are out to take away the limited resources is a lie. Largely because the lack, scarcity, and insufficiency you’re presented are untrue.
When you’re complacent in your life, you will be more inclined to buy into lies and deception of this nature. But this is the big picture. Let’s zoom back into you and your life.
Your life and being complacent in it
Nobody is here to merely exist. Humans are not like the rest of the animal kingdom.
You – and every other human on the planet – are capable of abstract, creative, and unique thoughts. You are a complex being of multiple thoughts, emotions, and intentions. And you’re capable of constant learning and evolving.
To be fair, you need to do things to make money to have all the basic necessities in life. You won’t be handed a home, food, clothing, or anything else – work is necessary to have and acquire them.
But if the way you live now is a constant struggle, a source of discontent, and otherwise lacking – you’ve likely allowed yourself to be complacent in your life.
When you live largely by rote, routine, and/or habit, this will occur. You’re more likely to buy into messages of lack, scarcity, insufficiency, the way “it’s supposed to be”, and the like.
Mindfulness – active, conscious awareness – is the way to move past this. By asking yourself, here and now, what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, and the why of your actions – you become actively, consciously aware.
That will tell you if you are living life – or letting life live you.
You are worthy and deserving of experiencing a life that brings you more joy than not, makes you desire to explore potential and possibilities, and more. That gives you control over what you can control – your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self. And from there, you can move past complacency and try, do, have, and be more.
Not for anyone else. Not for the approval of others. For you, and your good. You are ultimately worthy and deserving.
Do you find yourself being complacent in your life – and discontent as such?
This is the five hundred and ninety-eighth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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