Many of us see in life that we are either a success or a failure, and more often than not we are too harsh on ourselves and default to failure. But what scale are you using to measure this on? Who determines a success or a failure? Maybe you didn’t get the outcome you were expecting or hoping for, but came to a different outcome. It’s all about perspective and how we choose to view something.
The world sees things as right or wrong, black or white, rich or poor, but really life is your Journey. It’s a story you write and there is no correct answer, there is no definite answer to whether it is right or wrong. There are in life somethings which are good and bad, foods and similar that we know are not good for us. But decisions and life are mostly built from our growing up and the conditioning we have been taught to think. We adopt many of the beliefs our parents and grandparents taught us was right or wrong. Breaking out of this is very difficult to achieve, especially if your parents were strongly against something.
The bottom line is that as long as it is not hurting others, who’s to say you cannot do it? You can break out of the conditioning of the mind, there are many different ways, some people find meditation is a great way to free your mind. We often have so many signals pumping around in our brains, more so in today’s fast paced environment where we easily overwhelm ourselves because the choices are so broad. Why do you like chicken? Is it because you were taught chicken is enjoyable growing up? Imagine you never ate chicken, people around you found it satisfying so one day you eat it. Problem is your brain is not sure because there is a part of you that feels guilty because you might have been told growing up chicken is bad for you and it’s full of germs etc. Problem can be that your brain doesn’t fire the same excitement triggers because they have been blocked by the feeling of guilt.
A credo I try to make all decisions by is ‘you can’t bag it until you’ve tried it’, for those that need more explanation. You can’t dislike or hate something unless you have tried it and can say you don’t like it. So have I tried everything? No, there are things I am neutral in my opinion. I don’t judge those that like it and I don’t judge those who don’t. I was not given a judge badge upon entering earth and don’t feel the need to be higher or mightier than anyone else. We are all journeying here on earth trying to enjoy and love the life and freedoms we have. Whether you believe there is a god or not is irrelevant to life after death, my goal is to enjoy and experience life before death. As long as I don’t hurt other people, or cause issues to their journey then I don’t see myself doing any harm.
Why is it then that people judge others? Mainly because internally we are unhappy, we feel trapped, we don’t like seeing people happy and enjoying life when we are miserable. It is also easier to assume things and just write-off their happiness as being high or on drugs. Depression is real and everyone has to deal with aspects of it every day, as previously mentioned we are our biggest critic we are so harsh on ourselves. What feeds depression? More depression, it can become a fast slope down if you continue to feed it. This is why many encourage fitness and exercise because of the chemical reactions and the change it makes in us. We can combat depression, we can deal with that but more often it is easier to dwell on it than to distract our minds and occupy it with better healthier things which will start to make us feel good about ourselves.