Every ascent is preceded by a descent
what the title of this post states, is the law. Now let me try to explain it:
Let me bring up this scenario, I'm driving to the mall and on my way somebody runs through a red light and I almost crash with that person, I obviously get mad and insult the intelligence of my fellow citizen, then I cool down and forget about it. Next day, the same scene happens and I get the same reaction, of course now the context would be a little different but the outcome of my reaction would be essentially the same. Similar circumatances keep happening every day, somebody does something unnexpected that complicates things for me, so I get mad and rant for a while then cool down and move on. I try to be more careful each day to avoid such inconviniences but it doesn't matter how prepared I could be, there is always room for something unnexpected to happen that will trigger the same response, but i have nothing to do with it, right? I'm being a good citizen respecting the law, taking care of my things, and trying to be prepared for anything that might cause me problems. So, what the hell? why does that same psychological state keep repeating itself? The answer is simple, is because I'm justifying my anger with circumstances therefore I'm not learning anything and I'm not improving at all. What I should do is, after I get mad ask myself? why am I so mad? Sure it caused me some trouble and all but what's the point in being mad? I'm just hurting myself by it, so I must realize that. I should be ashamed of myself for causing me so much psychological stress and then I see how pointless that reaction was and therefore become psychologically immune to such circumstances, because they'll keep happening, they are a part of life and I have to deal with them without hurting myself in the process.
See my point? first I was being stubborn feeling almighty and justifying my ego, therefore I couldn't possibly ever become immune to such a feeling, I wasn't improving at all. but then I realized that I was hurting myself, so I descended into shame to become immune to feeling anger under those circumstances and overall ascending in my psychological well being ladder.
On a side note: if we don't ascend, we're just wasting our lifes.
Let me bring up this scenario, I'm driving to the mall and on my way somebody runs through a red light and I almost crash with that person, I obviously get mad and insult the intelligence of my fellow citizen, then I cool down and forget about it. Next day, the same scene happens and I get the same reaction, of course now the context would be a little different but the outcome of my reaction would be essentially the same. Similar circumatances keep happening every day, somebody does something unnexpected that complicates things for me, so I get mad and rant for a while then cool down and move on. I try to be more careful each day to avoid such inconviniences but it doesn't matter how prepared I could be, there is always room for something unnexpected to happen that will trigger the same response, but i have nothing to do with it, right? I'm being a good citizen respecting the law, taking care of my things, and trying to be prepared for anything that might cause me problems. So, what the hell? why does that same psychological state keep repeating itself? The answer is simple, is because I'm justifying my anger with circumstances therefore I'm not learning anything and I'm not improving at all. What I should do is, after I get mad ask myself? why am I so mad? Sure it caused me some trouble and all but what's the point in being mad? I'm just hurting myself by it, so I must realize that. I should be ashamed of myself for causing me so much psychological stress and then I see how pointless that reaction was and therefore become psychologically immune to such circumstances, because they'll keep happening, they are a part of life and I have to deal with them without hurting myself in the process.
See my point? first I was being stubborn feeling almighty and justifying my ego, therefore I couldn't possibly ever become immune to such a feeling, I wasn't improving at all. but then I realized that I was hurting myself, so I descended into shame to become immune to feeling anger under those circumstances and overall ascending in my psychological well being ladder.
On a side note: if we don't ascend, we're just wasting our lifes.