Inner Peace Tip - Taking Responsibility

I don’t follow the news much these days, partly because I have been aware of how I am affected by all of the negative spin that has been put on what is happening globally. With that in mind, I have made a conscious choice to be very deliberate in what I do watch, learning to put everything into perspective.

My attention, however, has been caught with the recent death of Michael Jackson. I learned about his death through a friend and also saw coverage of it while working out at the gym I belong to. Day after day there has been something about Michael and the wonderings of what happened. I became curious as to how it was that so much attention was put onto his life and death. How is it that so many can die, yet there are a few who have the limelight put onto them after departing?

I happened to catch an interview of Deepak Chopra as he spoke of his long time relationship with Michael. The major point that he emphasized was that throughout Michael’s life those around him enabled him. That is, people took care of him and to some extent protected him from harm’s way.

What I was struck with by this comment was how, perhaps, as a nation we have been enabled by those around us to not be accountable or responsible for decisions or actions that we have made. I look at my own life and realize how I have relied on forces outside myself to keep me safe and to take care of me. When I allow myself, without judgment, to look at different aspects of my life, I realize that in some areas, I have perhaps been taken care of too much.

As a nation, many of us have lived in a pseudo wealth mentality thinking that it bought us happiness. Having easy access to whatever we have wanted to purchase or what we thought would bring us fulfillment. In the past, it was easy to get multiple credit cards and spend money that perhaps we didn’t have.

Now that the paradigm or reality of over-consumerism is cracking, folks who have been used to having so much, are finding that they are having to cut back. What was so easily purchased or obtained is now not as readily available. As a result, many folks are experiencing fear that their needs will not be met or that they will be able to take care of themselves.

What if, what we are looking for, is slumbering quietly within us? That it isn’t out there, it is inside of us.

What does that mean? It means that what we may have been illusively searching for, that thing out there to make us happy, is only a temporary fix to a feeling of emptiness within. Perhaps looking within to what we really want is what we are all being called to explore.

I can recall countless times that if I misplaced something, I simply went out and bought another one. Now, I have the acute awareness to be grateful for what I have taken for granted in the past. As a result, I look around my surroundings and notice how truly blessed I have been over the years with everything that I been given. Noticing this, I am releasing that which no longer serves me and finding that life is becoming less complex and fulfilling.

I am reminded of people in other countries who, according to our Western standards, have nothing compared with what we have. Yet, they are the ones who seem the happiest with what they do have. They enjoy the simple pleasures of being with family and friends. Of being grateful for the water they drink and the fruit from which they harvest.

Somehow many within the US have forgotten these simple pleasures. In the big pictures, perhaps we are all being reminded of what truly fill our hearts from the inside out.