DAILY SLICES OF LIGHT

 Shining Light into your Darkness

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars”

         This beautifully explicit observation was made on April 4, 1968 by the late Martin Luther King Jr., the American civil rights leader, in a public address in Memphis, Tennessee. It was in fact, the very last major speech he made before he was assassinated 1 day later, and is considered to have been one of the best of the many outstanding speeches he had delivered in his lifetime.

          In making the statement, he was reminding his audience that it was only when we are forced to descend to our lowest levels of desperation in a conflict, in our darkest hour, will we begin to see a way out of the conflict, and to discern more clearly who our true friends are. And it is only at this level, when we are stripped of all the added accessories of living which we all take for granted, when losing appears to be inevitable, will we find the strength to dig deep enough into ourselves to find our true potential, and see clearly enough the answers we needed to know. For, in the same way that we can only begin to appreciate the beauty and the majesty of the stars when the sky is dark, so too, we will only find our true capabilities, our basic strengths and our weaknesses, after descending to our darkest, lowest point. And it is only after we have suffered through the pain of this journey, will we come to know the true meaning of humility, and learn the fundamental purposes of our life.

          Carl Jung, the outstanding German psychotherapist, whose original work and his approach to life, has greatly influenced my own thinking and behavior, once observed:

 “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures in the light, but only by being conscious in the darkness.”

 When Jung referred to the ‘dark side’ of the person, he was in fact referring to the deeply embedded fears and insecurities which together cause so much pain and disappointment to the individual, and can seriously interfere how he views his life. Until the individual finds the courage to step into the darkness, make the effort to understand his ‘demons’, and learn to control or to rise above them, he will remain at their mercy. In the same way that a person can only know whether he is capable of swimming in the deep ocean, is by jumping into the water, so too, only by truly knowing yourself in the darkness of your life, can you then confidently step out into the light of reality, and for that matter, can you truly appreciate the darkness of others.

          Your own character, like a good photograph, will never be able to show its true colors simply by reflecting the light from others, but will only fully bloom, if you allow it to develop in the darkness of yourself. Unless he deliberately acknowledges the dark side of his mind, no one can ever succeed in truly knowing himself, nor can he gain insight on all the repressed thoughts and beliefs that have accumulated over the years of living. Nor will he understand the reasons for the continued fears, insecurities and rejection that fully control his life, nor why he continues to deny or ignore them. Nor will he be aware of those dark shadows caused by the endless list of repressed thoughts and experiences which he had consciously and unconsciously, buried rather than facing them. All of this indeed, was the “darkness” that Jung was referring to, the one that was preventing the person from truly knowing himself, and forcing him to show the outside world a different picture of himself. As Jung himself frequently stated:

 “No one can ever begin to know himself, while still having to deny those aspects of himself that lay buried in the mind.”

         Without question, the single most significant failing of human beings in general, is their unwillingness to address their own faults. Rather than having to face themselves, their greatest critics, they try to reflect the blame on to other people, or on to things or other sources, irrespective of they being real or imagined. They go the great lengths to focus their search outwardly in a pseudo-attempt to find explanations and answers, without ever intending to do so; all because of their unwillingness to admit to, far less to grasp their own faults. This fact has led the Dalai Lama, in his profound wisdom, to declare:

 “When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. But when you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.”

          In so many ways, we are all, in one way or another, locked in a battle going on inside of us, as we try to come to terms with the repressed or the unconscious aspects of our personality. We are, to varying degrees, suffering in silence from the many feelings of fear, sadness, anxiety, disappointments and failure which have occurred, and are continuing to occur, for which we had no answers. They hover around constantly in our minds, clouding it and preventing us from being able to experience the happiness, the joy, the pleasure, the peace, the love and the hope to which we are entitled. They muddle our thinking, confuse our decision, and interfere with our behavior, and, as a consequence, render us incapable of making full use of all the opportunities available to us.

          But having to face, far less defeat, these ‘demons’ can be a formidable exercise, which, even under the most favorable situations, is never a guaranteed success. Even with the best intentions, and a genuine desire to do so, the task can, at some times, appear to be almost impossible to achieve. The main reason for this difficulty can be found in the fact that this ‘darkness’, made up of all the repressed and unconscious experiences accumulated over a life time, is like an iceberg of which only 10% is even accessible, and the other 90% remaining out of reach. This explains why so many people are unable to get past the obstacles in their lives; not for want of trying, but rather for lack of understanding how it should be done. There is an instinctual wall of fear embedded in the person which forces him to turn away from tackling it, or to bury it deeper into his psyche, both of which results in increasing the darkness. This is the kind of darkness that spawns the anxieties and the insecurities, and aggravates the situation. And the one that, more than 3000 years ago, the ancient Greek playwright and philosopher, Sophocles was moved to cry out in despair:

 “Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me through mist and cloud.”

         Like any other of the endless number of conflicts we may get into during our lifetime, in dealing with this crisis, we always have two options available to us; we can accept the challenge, face it head-on and hope to win, or if we cannot, at least neutralize it so it causes no concern. Or alternatively, choose to cower in fear and run away or hide from the threat. Too many of us however, are so overwhelmed by the thought of confrontation, and afraid to allow ourselves to face the repressions, fears and insecurities that we harbor, that we choose to just deny them. For a number of reasons, we are content to throw our hands up in despair, turn away in fear, and stay locked in our prison of uncertainty. Sometimes there may be legitimate reasons, but most of them are mainly reactive because we were lacking the confidence to deal with them when they are exposed. This illusion of uncertainty is indeed our greatest enemy, the one that the great ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, warned us against in his comment:

 “There is no greater illusion than fear.”

                But that notwithstanding, this brief life we have all been given to spend on this earth would have been wasted, if we allow ourselves to remain enslaved in the prison of uncertainty. Therefore, we have no alternative but to find ways to confront the dark part of our psyche, to banish, or at least quiet our demons, and allow the light of reality to return. This requires, not only finding the courage and confidence to go forward, but also the understanding and insight to make the right decisions. It needs equally, the illumination and good sense to do the right thing and to recognize that darkness will not be overcome with more darkness, but with the bright light of knowledge and good sense. Above all else, there has to be a willingness to forgive yourself and others, for the pain that was caused, and equally, forgive yourself from the guilt that invariably followed. The past, however traumatic it might have been, must also be fully embraced, for otherwise, it will return to haunt us again and again. And throughout all our efforts, the future should be kept in the right context, not to be feared, but to be anticipated.

          Perhaps, the Holy Bible offers, as it so often does in the affairs of mankind, the most succinct advice of all, in Romans 12:21:

 “Do not be overcome by the darkness of evil, but overcome the evil, with good.”

 -This indeed is the message that we are all meant to live by. Rather than allowing ourselves to be overcome by the darkness of our fears and anxieties, we can choose to overcome the darkness, with the bright light of knowledge and understanding. And in so doing, live the full and satisfying life that is our entitlement.

 

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DAILY SLICES OF LIFE - Choosing to Live Each Day.

 

 “Begin at once to live, and count each

separate day as a separate life.”

         This powerful advice was given more than two thousand years ago in 49AD by the great ancient Roman stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca. It was contained in his immortal moral essay entitled De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life) which dealt essentially with the unfortunate fact that man would rather spend most of the precious time given to him in wasteful and meaningless pursuits, than in making full and purposeful use of it. He lamented that although when it is used correctly, each day contains enough time to fully satisfy everything that needs to be satisfied, yet in his compulsion to ensure that he will extract as much as he can from each moment of the day, mankind ignores this truth and instead, wastes each day absorbed with the mistakes of yesterday, and with worrying about tomorrow. As a result, he never fully sees the opportunities that today has to offer, and, as a direct result of this, he often pays a heavy price in disappointments and in frustrations. Seneca himself, took pains to advise:

“Life should only be lived in the present, and                                            only in pursuit of intentional purposes.”

         The truth in Seneca’s advice has lost nothing of its luster even after the passage of more than two millennia, and it continues to ring out loudly and clearly to those who care to listen. Yet despite this, only a relatively small number of people consciously make the effort to truly live in the present. Although we readily give lip service to the cliché “live each day as if it were your last day,” few of us ever try to do so. Nor do we take the time each morning when we wake up, to consider that there was no guarantee that this will have happened, nor for that matter, that the day itself will last to the end. Nor do we ever pause long enough to really take stock of our true needs, and match them with our desires and our capabilities. Instead, like so many others around us, we are driven to feel that we must just try to take hold of as much as we can get our hands on, without knowing why; except that it feels good, and satisfies our insecurities. Throughout the history of mankind on this earth, this attitude has continued in spite of all the changes that have taken place. Very few have bothered to learn that life becomes more meaningful when we live only to satisfy our needs, rather than securing as much as we ca. And we have continued to ignore the advice of Marcus Aurelius, the ancient Roman Emperor, among many others, who have all insisted that:

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a special privilege it is to be alive; - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

         But trying to live each day in the way we ought to live, is neither easy, nor does it come readily to the great majority of us. This is not because we are ignorant of the advantages of doing so, but rather as a consequence of our deeply embedded instinct of holding on to the past, and of being apprehensive and concerned about the future. Over the centuries of human evolution, we have developed a confusing paradox of how we should best use our time on the planet. Instead of recognizing the obvious need to conduct life in the present, we become locked by our past experiences, or by our projections of the future, and as a result, lose our perspective. Rather than being concerned about our own needs, we tend allow other people to influence or determine our choices, and instead of satisfying our own hopes and needs, we devote our time trying to please the expectations of others. The end result of this paradox is that we gradually lose sight of the reality that is the present, and focus on the mirage of illusions created by anticipation. This I believe, was the intent of this Unknown author when he so wisely noted:

 “Rather than seeing what is, we look                                                          for what was, or what might be!”

         John Green, a successful American author, in trying to describe the long-term effects of this kind of behavior on us, in an appropriate context, painted the following picture:

“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you will escape one day, and how awesome it will be; but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”

Whenever we convince ourselves of the truth of a situation, we tend to stop searching for the evidence to confirm the change, and instead, begin to anticipate how we should be adapting to it. The net result of this approach is that, however the outcome, we will be left unhappy and unfulfilled, and less inclined to try new directions. So that, rather than living with the expectation of change as we ought to, we tend to lock ourselves into a prison of uncertainty, and lose the freedom that comes with growth and change. We end up, not trying to live each day in the present to its fullest, as we should all be doing, but spending it preoccupied with the past and the future, and wasting the beauty of each day, with all its blessings.

          But deciding to make full use of each day carries responsibilities which many of us may find onerous. At minimum, it means showing up each day awake and aware, fully willing to accept what comes along; the joy, the pain, the stress, the frustrations, the failures and the successes. It means deliberately slowing down and savoring the ‘gifts’ that nature provides each day, including the beauty of night and day, the glory of sunshine, the majesty of the changing seasons and the unpredictable powers of the sea. It means listening to the sound of wind, the music of the birds and the noises of the trees. It means that we take the time to truly hear others, to understand that, despite the fact that they may or may not be agreeable, they are still part of the day. It means also, that, irrespective of the kind of day, whether overflowing with energy and enthusiasm, or despondent and dejected, does not permit you to engage nor disqualify yourself from the day. It means, in fact that on that day, you must still decide to live each day to the fullest, notwithstanding whether you conquered all your fears and anxieties, or feel broken and intimidated to have to face the coming day, or even, that you had caused pain and suffering to others, or they had done it to you.

          Charles Darwin, the great British naturalist, and author of the ground breaking, “The evolution of the species,” in speaking of the failure of the human being to make full use of the life given to him, stated;

“A man who dares to waste an hour of his time,

has not discovered the value of his life.”

In saying this, he recognized the full value of living purposely and lamented the fact that most people make very poor decisions concerning the use of their time, without ever realizing its effect on their lives. This statement is not unlike the statement that a colleague of mine made to me many years ago; one which at that time, I challenged that:

  “We should always seize the day (“carpe diem”), for since life 

may end at any time, it becomes important that that we appreciate all we can, while it still lasts.”

          Life is not a dress rehearsal but the only one we each will ever have. It was given to us to make use of, without any instructions, or, for that matter, any guaranties or promises. We are left entirely to our own resources to do what we can, and to derive the best we can, from it. Yet few of us ever bother to consciously live in the present, nor do we take the time to appreciate the full import of doing so. Perhaps, this is precisely what this Unknown Author was trying to convey to us when he offered this beautiful advice:

“The birds sing each morning because they know that they have another day to live. Life and mornings are gifts. Learn to enjoy them as the birds do.”

-This indeed, is the true message that we must all abide by, if we wish to get the best out of every day that we have been allotted to use on this earth. For in the end, it does not matter whether or not your name is emblazoned on buildings and monuments, or repeated over and over by others. What truly matters, above all else, is whether you are able to look back at your life and confidently report: “Carpe diem!”

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