Through some meditation practice, one can learn that not reacting to something is a very valuable skill to acquire. It took me over a decade to realise that, it seems.
I adore the practice of writing, for some reason. And through that practice of writing, I realised that I want to write my thoughts about all the things I the universe. Which I cannot do, obviously.
It’s only recently that I made many blogs, to cover different topics, and I keep adding more. Yet, it seems like some of them aren’t loved much. (That’s fine and expected.) This one, is for these various erratic thoughts, especially the ones I have late at night, those that keep me awake. So, this is one of those thoughts.
It’s very difficult to learn this skill. To not react. My mother-in-law taught me a valuable skill, I don’t get emotional to some incredibly stupid things.
These days I’m more like ‘ah, okay’ than ‘WTAF?!’
That helps me to preserve energy. My wife is still at that point in time, when she’s not over it. She cannot accept her parents as they are (non-parent, completely foreign people, not too loving, caring, and smart). I did. I did that for all my surrounding, and it helps.
There are many things one can react to. And I never mean no reacting to everything. Although, some Buddhist monks might be, I believe. It’s rather some filter, and I guess many of us learn that skill through life, eventually.
Really, there are so many things you’re so angry about today, but they’ll no matter the very next morning.
There are thoughts that haunt me deep at night, but they are no longer once I’m awake the next morning.
There are messages I react to respond, as my reptile brain treats them as something urgent and valuable, but they’re not. There are messages I used to write thinking. They are valuable, only to learn they are not, very much not.
All that takes time, and time is a very valuable asset to our lives. It’s one of the greatest mysteries, I guess. Time. But also, that’s one of the greatest blessings. There were moments, it was difficult to live through the day, so bad the life felt. None of that feels that difficult today.
There are tasks I thought I ought to do them, and some of them felt so urgent, I tried to do them right away. There was a day I did a very intensive physical training late at night (circa midnight), because I missed my daily exercises that day. Yeah, I had an amazing body those days, but the whole concept of doing those exercises that late at night felt immensely stupid.
I was doing them realising I probably brining more harm than good, and still I was doing them. As I tried to fight my fat paunch, that felt as an effective way of doing that. But the effective way of doing that would be having a system, not reacting to some impulse.
There are tasks I thought are so important only because I remembered of them, all of a sudden.
There are countless of examples to this.
Perhaps, the point is, there’s no need to react when you think you need to react. As when you need to react, you don’t think. You react.
The rest is when you need to take a deep breath, and not react1.