This morning while talking to my buddy Michael, who runs The Stillness Guide, we were talking about stereotyping and how that line is being blurred in this ever changing consciousness. We deal with it every day. If you’re a Yoga instructor you don’t drink, if you’re a Rock n Roller you don’t meditate, etc. What we’ve come to realize that in every community there are a number of people that we just can’t put into a box.
Why do we put people in a box?
If there were no boxes then everything would be ok. Nothing would be bad. We, as a society, can’t cope with this. We need to validate what we do. War, for example. We have to label a ‘bad guy’ to validate war when the reality of it all is that there is no ‘black and white’. We can’t wrap out heads around the fact that the ‘bad guy’ has a family, probably a good neighbor, has given to charities, etc.. We want to see him as an evil person who probably walks out his front door and kills kittens for fun and flips off the neighbors when he see’s them. Other examples could be; I don’t want to smoke pot because it’s ‘bad’ for you, makes you lazy, and you’re probably homeless to boot. But the reality of it is, in this example of ‘pot’ that its actually a medicinal substance that has helped a lot of people. I could go on and on about hemp as well. I’ll let you research that yourself. Yet another example which has kept a lot of people where they are financially is; Money makes you a bad person. Believe me… I grew up with this mentality and I know now how this thought pattern has kept me financially in the dumps. Did you know that the actual translation in the bible that we’ve been taught is ‘wrong’? We’ve grown up believing that ‘Money is the root of all evil’ when in fact the actual translation is ‘The Love of money is the root of all evil’. Doh! What else out there has been misinterpreted that we believe today? Now THAT is something to look into.
Who do you put in a box?
Do you put yourself in a box? Your family? Your friends?
I was talking to Michael about my Uncle. Lovely guy. Served in the Marine Corp for 42 years. Someone that I deeply respect. The way that he would validate things was pretty simple. It made it alright for him to comprehend. When asked about David (me) and my long hair my Uncle would reply, “David has to have long hair, he’s in the music business”. Now, we all know that isn’t the ‘truth’ but it makes him comfortable believing this. What if I told him that I wear my hair long because each hair on my head is an extension of myself and that by cutting it I would feel lost. I wouldn’t feel whole…. I think this would make his head explode because he can’t understand that philosphy. Now don’t think that I’m saying that people that put others in a box are bad. Not at all. We all do it. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years. Recognizing that we are doing it is a big step in the right direction. Recognizing it and then changing our thought pattern. Getting rid of the neural pathways that we’ve created.
Have you read this book? It’s a good way to get yourself out of the box, to test the waters. Why would you want to do that? Because the road less traveled doesn’t have any ruts. You’ve heard the expression, ‘stuck in a rut’? Well, the road that has been trodden upon by the masses has a lot of ruts. Neural Pathways are like this. When you think a certain thought and continue thinking it you create a neural pathway with a rut. The rut gets deeper as you travel down this road (pathway) and the deeper the rut, the harder it is to get out of. So taking the road less traveled it’s much easier to move freely but not many people like to take this road because its scary. Like turning out the lights in the bedroom. You don’t know what’s there because you can’t see the monster. What if I told you that the only monster is the one that you create in your head and the only reason you create that monster in your head is to keep you there in your box. Kind of a Catch 22, eh?
Most of us stay in this box because we don’t want to be be outcasts, we want to fit in, or we are just plain scared. Ask yourself this though… What is worse? Fitting in to a society that is going to ‘like’ your page on Facebook? Is that the society that we’ve become? Personally I’d rather have people in my life that can challenge me. People that can move me to a higher level of consciousness. In the pre-internet days I would sit in coffee houses and physically talk to people. Look into their eyes, see their body language, challenge them as they challenged me. Learning from each other for just one goal…
To get out of the box.
Namaste,
David
