You Can Only Change Your Corner of the World
You only control change when it comes to you and your life.
I do my best to stay informed about world happenings. However, I choose to do so no deeper than surface-level information. That’s because I know if I dig too deeply, I’ll get upset, angry, scared, frustrated, and doom and gloomy.
A small number of selfish people are doing some pretty unconscionable things to the world right now. Beyond them, a slightly larger, but still small, number of people are going along with them. That’s because it makes them short-term gains. Yet it appears that vast swaths of humanity lack basic human decency. It’s infuriating, maddening, and deeply upsetting. Largely because there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.
You and I have a very limited number of things we can do about big-picture matters. We can vote, boycott, attend protests, share think-pieces about our views, bombard our leaders with emails, calls, and letters, and that’s about it.
What do you control? Your life and changes that you make with intent. You can make choices and decisions about who, what, where, how, and why you are.
Though you might have artificial and real limitations you can’t ignore, you’re ultimately still empowered to change your corner of the world.
Think globally, act locally
Like attracts like. Consciousness creates reality. The more you focus on the negative, the more you seek and find reasons to feel doom and gloom, the more you affirm it. Confirmation bias is psychologically understood and ties into the above notions.
If you expect something to be awful, worry about it, give it intent and energy, odds are it will be awful. But, you might say, there are truly awful things out there, and I won’t ignore that. Good, please don’t. Knowledge is power, after all.
This is where toxic positivity, an extreme reaction, comes in. Some suggest you must exclusively think positive and force out any and all negativity you encounter. That’s bullshit. We live in a universe of extremes, and negativity can be just as important to acknowledge as positivity. Also, negative things can spark positive things.
I can’t and don’t know your circumstances. You might have some very real struggles physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually. Yet if you’re reading these words, you have the ability to make new and different choices and decisions.
Over the years, I’ve found that a lot of the times when I felt stuck, lost, or at a crossroads, it was because I wasn’t being actively mindful. Rather than utilize active conscious awareness and make choices and decisions, I let my subconscious do the driving or went along with whatever I was presented with.
When you make choices and decisions, that’s action. Doing something, using your power to choose and decide for yourself, puts you in control of change. However, that change is only about you and your corner of the world.
You can only change your corner of the world
I’m the only one in my head, heart, and soul. Likewise, you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Ergo, I don’t know what’s happening inside of you and vice versa.
Recognizing and acknowledging this, it’s a lot easier to realize you can’t control anyone or anything else. Even outside things you can control – like a car – can leave your control in an instant due to uncontrollable change. I can’t control what another driver in their car does, and the impact of that can remove the control I had milliseconds ago if they merge into me on the highway.
Changing the hearts and minds of others is impossible. But you can change yours. You can take action, do things, and make choices and decisions that change your life.
Part of what I think throws people off about this is how many of those are teeny, tiny, seemingly unimportant changes. Yet, like any muscle, exercising your ability to make any given choices and decisions makes you stronger. It builds your strength. In this instance, that’s all about mindfulness and empowerment.
The Butterfly Effect postulates that the beating of the wings of a butterfly on one side of the globe can lead to a hurricane on the other. Something utterly, almost impossibly tiny could result in something ginormous. This is, however, a true fact. Small choices and decisions that create change in your life can lead to larger and larger ones.
All of them impact you. When you are doing things to change your life in any way, they empower you. That’s because you’re taking charge and doing what you can to be who, what, where, how, and why you can be.
This is never one-and-done. It’s ongoing. That’s because change is the only constant in the universe.
Change happens
No matter who you are, what your life experience is, has been, or could be, change happens. Don’t believe me? You were once a child. Then you changed into a teenager. After that, you changed into an adult. Change is inevitable, unstoppable, and a constant in everyone’s life.
The lack of control we have over most change terrifies people. To add insult to injury, certain parties love to weaponize that terror and use fear of change for dominance, control, and selfish gains.
Then, as part of that, some people see choosing self-care, wellness, and making changes to improve your life as selfish. And while it might be, to a degree, since you alone are in your head, heart, and soul, doesn’t it stand to reason that you know what you need/want/desire? Maybe you changing upsets others because they don’t see how to do it for themselves, or fear being left behind as you become more empowered.
Empowerment, however, isn’t finite. It’s for everyone, and it’s abundant beyond imagination. The reality is that most ideas of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are utterly false and/or artificial. This is especially true of all the intangibles. Love? Peace? Joy? Contentment? Abundant beyond your wildest dreams.
Some of the change you can choose seems insignificant. Also, some of it involves choices between bad and worse. Yet, more often than not, exercising your power to make choices and decisions is empowering. And when you’re empowered, you can be, do, and have more of the life experiences you desire.
Prove this for yourself
To see for yourself how this works, choose to do something different where you normally let rote, routine, and/or habit dictate your actions. Start brushing your teeth from a different place. Think about and count how many steps you take from the bedroom to the bathroom. Chew each bite of your food ten times and consider what you’re tasting. Take a different route to work. Or do something like that. Do something via choice and decision differently than you normally would.
Afterward, pause and consider. Did you notice it was different? How did it make you think or feel? Did you feel like you gained something from making a conscious choice/decision? Did it feel as if you took more control of the moment than you normally do?
That’s empowerment. You can control very, very little of the world, but your corner of it and how you interact therein is yours. Hence, active conscious awareness, mindfulness of actions regarding seemingly insignificant things, is like lifting weights to increase strength. More choices and decisions increase empowerment and control of your life experience.
And if you don’t get anything from it, try something else. Or go on as you are. Your life is yours to live. But know that you’re worthy and deserving of living it as best you can. Kick ass, take names, and have some fun with this.
What would you change in your corner of the world, in your life, if you took the time to choose and decide to change it?
This is the seventh-hundred-sixty-first (761) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share my philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to share and/or repost where it might do good for you and others.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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