Living Life On the Edge
2023-09-10Not the Exciting Edge
I've been getting some very valuable insights into my life as I have reviewed it over the course of these past few months (years!). When I look back to a section of my life about 15 or 20 years ago, I realize that I was living life on the edge. I don't mean this in the exciting sense of taking risks and being daring. I mean the edge of my life was the point I was living for. The center of my life was the point that I had to endure and suffer and get through in order to get to the good stuff.
I Felt Internal Resistance
I can't see how I could have done it any differently, without being a different person. So I don't regret it. But I sure feel glad that I have changed my mode of living. I am no longer living life on the edge. I'm living life in the center. What I mean by that is I have accepted all the hardships of my life. Because I've accepted them, I can work on all of them without resistance. Without resistance…I mean internal resistance. This kind of resistance is where I am resisting the situation and I'm resisting my actions in it. It's like putting on the brakes when you're driving a car forward. It's a terrible waste of energy and quite destructive. I no longer have that kind of resistance so I can work wholeheartedly on a lot more things
Source of My Resistance
This has brought a lot of joy into my daily life. Of course I'm talking in black and white now and it's not quite as black and white or as simple as this but in general this is how it is. When I say I was living on the edge I meant that I really wanted some situations such as playing with my kids and watching a good movie, and I really didn't want other situations such as a stressful job and difficult work. There were parts of my job that I didn't like. This was because I wasn't very good at it. I wasn't very good at it, so I didn't like it. Then I put up resistance (psychological resistance… inside myself…. I was conflicted) and of course this is a vicious spiral downwards. By letting go of all these attachments to positive and negative things slowly bit by bit, I am overcoming my internal resistance. I'm no longer living life on the edge. I'm living life in the middle. It's a much better place to be.