Australia and the World Past and Present

We often want things to be other than they are.

Some want a different job or more money.

Or on a larger scale, we wish that there wasn’t so much violence in the world. We wish that there no homelessness. We wish that there wasn’t so much pollution or that people didn’t take advantage of others.

Often we are not content with the status quo.

We want the world to be other than it is. We want the world to bend to our will. But it doesn’t. The reality is we were to pass away tomorrow, the world would go on. The world doesn’t have a single-person dependency.

When we want something to be different than it is, it creates a tension within us. We feel that things are so difficult. We wonder why. We are essentially in conflict with the world. We are swimming against the stream. And it is not very wise of us to do so. We can’t beat the world. It reminds me of someone standing on a beach, holding their hand up to a gigantic wave and telling it to stop. We all know what happens in this situation.

I suppose that there are 3 general ways that we can deal with frustration.

The frustration can go outward. And when it does it can lead to anger. It need not be violent. It might lead to terse conversations with those around us. People who go down this route will display a shorter fuse than they normally would have. It will be less pleasant to be around them. It as though this energy that is created needs somewhere to go. In this case it flows outward.

But if it doesn’t go outward, it can flow inwards. And here we find depression. One may begin with initial frustration and anger and later move to depression. This make sense in a way. Anger is a high-energy state. If you believe that you can still change a situation, you might attack it again and again, like a battering ram. But at some stage, if no change is evident, a feeling of hopelessness and despair can arise. And then we have arrived at depression.

The third way would be get rid of the initial impulse so that there is no frustration that gets redirected towards others or towards yourself. It requires that you give up wanting things to be other than they are, which can be incredibly difficult given the social conditioning that many of us go through. We are often taught that we need to want ever more. To no be satisfied with what we have and where we are. We are encouraged to get a bigger house in a better street or suburb. We are encouraged to get endless promotions, more money, take more and longer holidays. It can be incredibly difficult for many to give these things up. It requires us rewiring our internal values or thinking.

But, if we are able to let go of what we don’t have and be a hundred percent content with where we are and what we have, we will be totally accord with the world itself. There should be no incongruence.

The theory is there for us to put in to practice, but for many of us it requires a huge jump in the opposite direction we normally take