Friday, November 4, 2022
The tragedy of a tragedy is when difficulty does not open one’s mind and eyes. I know someone who suffered a severe heart attack, and they had to induce hypothermia to save his life. He had actually been dead for several minutes when they got him to the hospital. Fortunately he managed to survive, but the jolt of kissing death’s feet did not prompt him to change his lifestyle. The experience didn’t cut deep enough to make him change. He remains in his stressful job, he eats junky foods, and he still doesn’t exercise.
Turbulence is a way of shaking people out of a sleeping state, disintegrating the illusory shell of the ego. That outer layer is determined, however! Often when people get a wake-up alarm, they simply thump the snooze button. How many close calls does one need before they change? Turbulent times are a warning signal that it’s time to do better, to make a change, to wake up. It could be that the world is experiencing this very thing, at the collective level.
Sometimes wake-up calls can have the opposite effect. Alarming circumstances can prompt fear, causing people to become more stubborn, dig their heels in, and to go deeper into their comfort zones. But you cannot resist change. Life will smoke you out of your bunker, or let you be buried by your own bullheadedness. Reality could collapse in a second, and you would be powerless against it, so what are you resisting? Turbulence prunes to the bare-bones, and it shakes you into submissive surrender. Sometimes circumstance acts as a tenderizing, tempering agent that neutralizes a false sense of invincibility. When you go through hard times, quickly allow softness to penetrate deeply into your physiology. Remember how vincible, vulnerable, and temporary you are. Pay attention to turbulence. It’s a wake up call – answer it.