Reassessing Perceptions

Here's a story that exemplifies what perception is:

An man and his son worked their small farm, with one horse to pull the plow. One day, the horse ran away. Neighbors commented on how unfortunate this was. "Maybe," replied the father. Within a week, the horse returned leading several other horses. "What good fortune," exclaimed the neighbors. "Maybe," answered the father. The son broke his leg while attempting to tame one of the new horses. "What misfortune," said the neighbors. "Maybe," said the father. The army came through the village and took all eligible young men with the exception of the farmer's son who had the broken leg. "How fortunate," stated the neighbors. You know how the father responded.

Our perceptions of events can either help us flow through challenges or resist them. Most of us have experienced having something we judged as positive come to us in life, only to see a negative outcome down the line. We've also experienced something we perceived as negative happen, which later created a positive outcome. We simply do not have enough information at times to know what the ultimate outcomes of events will be.

One reason events perceived as negative can feel so uncomfortable is because they wake us up. We do tend to sleepwalk through our lives. We follow routines in order to get our jobs and daily obligations done. This pattern can dull the senses. Have you ever experienced an event and responded or reacted as though it was a complete surprise; yet if you thought about it, you recalled having even fleeting awareness that something was up or not quite in balance? We are often aware of such fluctuations, but choose to ignore them rather than address them. So when an event happens and we feel either discomfort or pain, we wake up and take care of matters we resisted.

Two things we can do: We can begin to focus our attention into every moment which allows us to stay aware of the obvious and subtle things at work around us and prepare for shifts, and we can decide to allow for the fact that even if an event is painful, it's possible that something beneficial for us is on its way to us once the initial feeling and, possibly, turmoil calms down.

The nutshell of what I'm saying here is that more often than not, our perceptions are what cause us suffering or keep us from moving ever forward in our lives. These are things we can manage. We can control what we do, but do not have complete control over all results. If we let go of some of the belief that we should be in total control, we get some pretty pleasant, if not nearly magical, surprises. We just need to get out of our own way and self-imposed limits to what happens and how it happens. The universal consciousness has a far better imagination than we do. Not a bad deal at all.