It
is a new year, technically, according to the Gregorian calendar we
seem to follow. Still, our phone, calendars and laptops will reset
and we will have the brand new opportunity to rewrite our history.
Indeed we always have the opportunity to do that, but on dates such
as this, when and where the ‘beginning’ is so evident, we can do
it consciously. This year, I didn’t make a resolution, this year; I
propose we do the opposite, this year I propose we do a
deconstruction.
Did
you know the number one cause of unhappiness and failure in people
are wrong beliefs? Yes. Well, I´m not sure that´s completely
accurate but it should be. We follow lies and tales from others that
insist that their way is the way and then we crash and burn. But this
doesn't need to be so. My proposal for this new year is that each one
of us takes the bucket of assumptions and beliefs that we carry
around with us and put it to the test.
Maybe
you are familiar with Descartes, the 17th
Century French Philosopher (‘I think therefore I am’ guy). To
begin writing his master piece, The Meditations, he locked himself in
a room and started to doubt everything he thought he knew (he even
doubted he had a body!) He practiced extreme skepticism. I am not
here suggesting you lock yourself in a room and do the same, but you
can use it as a metaphor to review what you really hold as truth.
From our principles to what we believe from the media, politics, the
internet, our family, friends, colleagues, parents and what not. We
are constantly being influenced by what other say and communicate. I
think this year we owe it to ourselves to review this beliefs and try
to know our selves and hold a system of belief that doesn't melt like
butter under the first ray of light and truth.
From
the moment we are children and are sent to school, we are already
presented and fed one version of reality. I don’t here want to get
into details of what was good or bad, useful or not, because I am
sure each one has their own opinion on the school system). My point
is that our own faculty of free thinking and discernment has been
intervened our entire life and we deserve to regain possession of our
own reason.
So
this year, I´m not going to try to loose weight or make more money
or stop swearing or whatever it is that I ever made myself promise
before. This year, I am going to doubt anything that I held as a
truth but smelt like a lie. This year I am going to review where my
beliefs come from and act on them. Why? Because I am certain that the
person inside the layers of conditioning and assumptions has a lot to
say. What better than to get acquainted with ourselves a little bit
for once.
Happy
New Year and good luck with your own meditations!
Eliza
Veretilo
Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter 65
Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter 65
