Pathwalking 238
My path is good for me, but probably not for you. As we are not in competition, I would be happy to help you along your path in whatever way I can.
Competition is a fine thing in certain respects. My baseball team versus your team, track stars running for the best time, fencers fighting to best one another, and for that matter most competitive sports. Competition in the everyday, for the most part, is unhealthy.
This is not just a straight-up notion, either. We become competitive on a number of different issues, in a number of different ways that are disempowering.
First there is the obvious. Competing for jobs, competing for food, competing to be classier, richer, smarter than anyone else. This is the fruit of lack mentality, of the belief that there is not enough of insert-object-x-here for everyone, so we have to struggle to get it for ourselves. I would bet that your social media channels are as clogged with this sort of competition as mine are.
Then there is the somewhat less obvious forms of competition. They got ‘x’, so now I should have ‘x’. I had to struggle to accomplish ‘y’, how come they didn’t have to work half as hard? Why do I get paid two-thirds of what he gets paid for the same work? This is the competition of resentment, of wanting our own slices of the same pie but seeing the pie as finite rather than infinite.
What it all boils down to is the same issue. We live in a society of lack mentality. The people whom we place in positions of power, and the media empires bombarding us with so-called news and information, are continuously telling us that we have to get it now before supplies run out! and such. We see this world as being full of limitations, we see that there is not enough of this, tha,t or the other thing, and we are set-up to struggle to have the things we want.
Why? Because this disempowers us. If we are disempowered, they can control us. Or, at the very least, they can work hard to direct how we think, how we feel and how we might act as such.
Look at the elections in the United States at the moment. Or for that matter, look at the vote on remaining in the EU or not that happened in Great Britain. People in power play on our fears, play on the things we are concerned the most about, like jobs and money and security, by telling us how we need to take back what already belongs to us, and that if we do not make or unmake these changes or avoid these people we will have even less. They present us with a tiny pie and claim this is all there is, and there is certainly not enough to go around. Grab it, any way you can, and never mind the consequences. They’ll handle everything for us.
How incredibly disempowering is that? And yet a stunning number of people believe it to be true. There just is not enough, we’re all in competition, get out of my way because I WILL get what is mine before you can take it from me!
This is not the truth. This is the lie that could unravel our entire society if we let it. We compete where competition is unnecessary because we allow ourselves to be disempowered, and we believe that this is a universe of lack, insufficiency, and exclusion.
The truth is very much the opposite of this. We live in a universe of more-than-enough, we live in a world of abundance, and we have the power to receive whatever we want. But we have to start empowering ourselves, and we need to recognize that this is not a competition.
Your path varies from mine because you are experiencing this life differently from how I am. You want to do things that I do not want to do. You find fun where I don’t. You may hold any number of beliefs that vary from mine. That is ok.
The universe is full to bursting with abundance. Any lack or deficiency is our own making. We are not in competition to outdo each other. We can have all the wealth, love, happiness and even power that we might desire. To get it, we have to empower ourselves.
What do you want from your life? What makes you happy? What makes you feel full? From the spiritual to the physical, the intangible to the tangible, we have different needs and desires, and there is no need to compete for them. In an abundant universe they are already out there, waiting for us to take hold of them.
How? By taking back our own empowerment. We have to stop going with the masses, stop allowing a very small few tell us how it is or how it should be, and we need to consider what we individually want, and how we might achieve it. Instead of searching without for the things that will make us feel safe, secure and happy we need to turn within. We need to recognize that each and every one of us has the power to create the world as we most want it to be, and that doing so does not need to deny anyone else their wants and needs.
Look at the things you think about and talk about during the day. How often are you focused on the concerns of others instead of your own? How often do you give away your empowerment to another, to an issue outside of yourself, to concerns and fears and anger? Are you focusing on things that you can take control of to better your own life, or are you focusing on things you can really do little to nothing about?
Be your own empowerer. Don’t be concerned so much with the paths of others, and focus instead on your own. This is how we can change the course of our society, by working from within instead of trying to force change from without. We are not in competition…unless you care to duel in the fencing lists with me. We can strive for our hearts’ desires without having to compete to get them.
Are you focused on your own paths, or the paths of others?
GOAL LOG – Week 28:
Diet: I am still eating pretty well, still eating less bread and pasta and the like. Had some ice cream once last week, and am happy to report I don’t really feel like returning sugar to my diet.
Exercise: Fencing happened twice last week, as did archery one day. I do need to get back to the gym and to increase my overall exercise.
Writing: Two days of editing. Finished what I was working on, but I need to continue to work on writing and editing.
Meditation: Four days of meditation, at least 6 minutes each day.
Gratitude: I wrote out 5 or 6 things to be grateful for every day last week.
This is the two-hundred thirty-eighth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.
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