How Do We See More Clearly That It’s Not a Race?
The human race is not, in fact, a race at all.
Nearly every message you receive, no matter the source, is a constant reminder that you need to go go go. Keep going. Always doing. Rest is for the wicked. You can sleep when you’re dead. And so on.
The idea of the “rat race” created this notion, long ago, that life is a constant race. Being first. As such, gets a whole lot of emphasis and is given importance. If you win, you win it all.
But what do you win? For real, stop and ask this question. What do I win at the end of the rat race? Retirement? All the money to do anything and everything I’ve ever desired? Peace of mind?
Unfortunately, the truth is this – you get nothing and you can’t win.
But there is an even larger, far more important truth about this that must be recognized and acknowledged:
It’s not a race at all.
Living life is not a race
Everyone who lives has the same three experiences, no matter who they are. You’re born. Then you live. You die.
Birth is the awakening of you in that body you occupy now – and will continue to occupy for the rest of your life. Let’s utterly ignore arguments about life beginning at conception or all else – life begins for us at our birth. That’s where it all begins for everyone on planet Earth who lives now, and who ever lived before, too.
Life ends in death. Period. Maybe there’s something after this body ceases functioning and ends – but who knows? It’s an equally intriguing and terrifying question. But no matter what the answer is or might be, the simple truth is that the vessel your energy resides in – your body – dies.
Between birth and death is the longest, most important element of being human. Life. You get life from birth to death. During that lifetime – however long it may or may not be – you get to have experiences. Good and bad, happy and sad, awesome and awful, positive and negative, and everything in between.
One experience, one lifetime. That’s the truth for everyone. Your life will be filled with experiences, lessons, people, places, things, ideas, tangibles, and intangibles. The only utterly reliable constant in any given life is change. Change can, will, and does happen for everyone.
Given all the above truths – where does a race come into play? It doesn’t. There is no race for goods services, tangibles, or intangibles. The only race is the human race, which all of us are in together.
The idea of the race is promoted by a false notion of competition.
The truth: We are not in competition
Unless you’re on a sports team playing against another sports team, a spelling bee, or participating in any activity that’s labeled as a competition – you’re not in competition.
We humans are not in competition with one another by default. There is no competition but artificial competition.
Competing for education, jobs, financial freedom, recognition, and any other form of social acceptance is utterly artificial. It’s based on made-up notions of competition that are not, in fact, true.
The trouble stems from a combination of consumerism and our fear-based society. Consumerism, because everywhere you turn, they’re trying to sell you something. Fear-based, because artificial lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are bombarding you with ideas that there’s not enough, supplies are running out, and worse – “they” will take it from you.
None of this is true. “They” seldom desire to take what you have or even what you desire. That’s because what you desire and what “they” desire might be similar, but are seldom and rarely the same. Most of what you are told is running out, scarce, or insufficient isn’t. But the fear of missing out – cutely branded as FOMO – gets weaponized to make us all compete.
But the truth is that we’re not in competition. This is largely because what we really, truly, genuinely desire is not tangible.
Most of the things people need are not things. The latest iPhone is not going to make you feel empowered. But connectivity, empathy, kindness, and other intangibles can, will, and do. Thus, the race to buy it all and have it all is utterly artificial and not real.
Just in case I’ve not made this clear enough: WE. ARE. NOT. IN. COMPETITION.
We are not in competition because all the intangibles – that which we all most desire – are utterly abundant.
There’s more than enough
The idea of competition and the rat race is designed to create a hamster wheel of endless struggle.
Do this so you can have that because without this or that you’re less than him/her/them and on and on and on. Look familiar? That’s part and parcel with our crazy race that’s not a race when you get down to it.
This is because what most people genuinely desire isn’t a given thing. It’s an intangible. Intangibles are abundant, and there is more than enough of them for everyone, and then some.
Every human being on Earth needs food, shelter, and clothing. Despite economic turmoil, poverty, and ludicrous wealth, there’s actually more than enough of all these for everyone. Greed, fear, ignorance, arrogance, and a whole host of things have created the imbalance of haves vs have-nots. But when all is said and done, there’s no competition for any of these tangibles. It’s just false artifice and socio-economic structures both logical and illogical. They were invented to form artificial social stratifications that are utterly made-up but very, very hard to change.
Beyond this, however, humans need connectivity with thought, feeling, and emotion. We all desire kindness, compassion, empathy, and love. All of these exist in extreme abundance. Way more than enough for everyone and then some.
It’s not a race or a competition
It is not a race and not a competition to get these for yourself. The human race is not, in fact, a race at all, it’s life itself and no two people move at the same pace. No matter how fast you go, or how hard you strive to win in life, the ending will be the same. There’s only death at the end of life.
Hence, my point here – live. If, as I’m increasingly sharing, the meaning of life is simple, and TO LIVE: Why would you make a race? Your time in this body is finite. Does racing through it make any logical sense? If the end is the same for everyone, and nobody “wins”, why is it a race?
It’s not.
Mindfulness of this helps us to make better choices along the way. One such better choice is to seek, find, and/or create positivity or things that help you look towards the positive end of the spectrum between the extremes. However, the choice – and making it or not – is yours.
Pause and look both within and without more closely. Open yourself to your senses, and what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, and what you are and aren’t doing. That’s how you can see more clearly that we’re not genuinely in competition and it’s not a race.
Seeing more clearly that it’s not a race isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that we’re not in competition with each other, and that the rat race and the like are utterly artificial – via active conscious awareness – you gain clarity of the truth. Knowing that life is not a race and that we only get one experience with it, you can mindfully make new and better choices to get yourself out of the race, set your own pace, and live purposefully, passionately, and more contentedly.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and tenth (510) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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