Pertho’s Pronouncements

What’s next?

I pose this question, “What’s next?”, as the title of this post, mainly because that’s the only thing on my mind these days. I have lived this life for almost 41 years now, and I’ve learned a lot, much more than I could have ever imagined, but my life has taken on an “up in the air” sort of status these days, where I never really know what’s going to happen from one day to the next.

This is where I think the lesson is this time. All my life I have gone along planning for what I thought was ahead, expecting, waiting, knowing for sure I knew what was to come. Well, as most enlightened spiritualists will tell you, living a life with expectations is not much of a life at all. The term I hear a lot is “preconceived notions”.

And that’s been me, the story of this life. I gather all the information I can on everything around me, and then I construct a “preconceived notion” about what I feel is going to follow, how events are going to play out. In general, this has worked out well in one sense, as I have seen things happen as I thought they did, further validating to me, in my own mind, that it was the right thing to do to start with. However, more often than not, I have not had enough information, nor did I have the emotional stability to be objective in many situations, and it then clouded my judgment. I came up with wild scenarios in my head about how others were and would be reacting, and devised intricate realities in my mind that had very little resemblance to the actual events occurring right in front of me.

The bottom line is this: People are all different. No one person will perceive a situation the same way you do. Even while you’re reading this, in your mind you are constructing the reaction you have to it, and each and every one of you is constructing one that is totally unique. I don’t know what that reaction is, so why should I write my article with the idea that I know how the audience will receive it? I believe I should not. Therefore, to have a preconceived notion about how someone feels is totally ridiculous, and ultimately counterproductive. It leaves your mind closed to the infinite possibilities of the universe. Yes, it’s really that big. You think you know how things work, you think you have it all figured out, but the real fact is, that’s only what YOU made up in your own mind. The real thing is much more complex. No one knows another person’s thoughts, the person they are “internally”. So you can’t predict who they will be externally either.

This goes for events and perceptions outside of humanity as well. Call it the secrets of the universe if you will, but none of us really KNOW what’s “out there”, even if it’s right here on earth. So much is going on, from the microscopic scale to the vast depths of our oceans. No one person can say that they know everything that is happening, no one knows who or what might be living right under our noses, because we aren’t perceptive enough to be aware of it. Having preconceived notions of the nature of reality puts you in a very small box, one that is not always easy to escape from.

This is what I am learning at the moment. On a spiritual, intellectual, and emotional level, I am learning to forget what I “know”, and to realize that there is a lot more going on that I will ever be able to comprehend. I am learning to understand that no other person thinks exactly the same as I do, and to forget the idea that I can predict their feelings or behavior. I’m breaking out of my box, because if there’s one thing that’s clear to me now, it’s that I only know enough to know I know NOTHING.

Who are we to say that God exists, or doesn’t, or that there aren’t thousands of gods and goddesses, or none at all? We don’t know. If someone chooses to believe in soda cans as gods? Sounds silly, right? But what if they’re right? Having a preconceived notion says it’s crazy, and leaves it at that. Closes you in a box. You think you know how that girl feels about you? Think again. She’s going through struggles in her own mind, and you might just have happened upon her at a bad time, when she snapped at you that day. It may have had nothing to do with you at all, but your silly preconceived notions said it was because she hates you. Now you’ve constructed this whole thought process in your mind, that goes around and around about what she’s thinking, is she mad, is she upset, what did I do?

This is what I’m working on, getting rid of that carousel of emotion. I’d rather ask “What’s next?” than to try to focus my energy on prediction or analysis of someone else’s thoughts, which I have no way of knowing about anyway. It won’t happen overnight, but I’m hopeful that I will find the means to completely break out of my box forever.