Ignorance Is Turmoil
They say “ignorance is bliss”. I believe ignorance is turmoil. I don’t mean in a sense that a lack of knowledge about the world will cause distress. I mean a lack of understanding our influence over this world can be detrimental to our journey in it.
It’s Monday morning. You wake up feeling freshly sober from the relaxing high of the weekend past. You have little expectation for the coming week, a blank slate. Yet, as you get out of bed, you stub your toe, or step on a child’s toy or even a dog toy, immediately associating your first impression of the day with pain and negativity. You find that the same culprit of your first interaction with the day has had an accident that requires your immediate attention and your routine is already running behind. It doesn’t have to be these exact occurrences but any series of unfortunate events that can deter you from beginning your day in a positive manner. You’re ultimately late for work and you end up chastised for it by your supervisor. Knowing it wasn’t your fault, it’s hard not to feel like the universe is conspiring against you today and even harder keeping it from showing in your language (verbal and body).
Your outward show of disdain for the recently transpiring events doesn’t go unnoticed by your superior and peers. Their attitude towards you simply reflects your own in that moment and even though your feelings may have been fleeting, their impression of you has changed and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Feeling a little alienated in the workplace, you are distracted and unable to apply yourself in your usual manner. Now your supervisor sees your attitude AND your performance slip. You are warned that both must improve or it will be reflected in your annual review. That’s a threat to your raise, promotion and advancement in life; and that’s exactly the way you see it because, well, your day has tanked your mood and you’re encompassed in negative energy. You can’t help but take it home with you where your temper is a little shorter and/or you’re less engaged with your family. And guess what? It doesn’t go unnoticed.
We all have the power to influence the world around us. Those closest to us and even those we don’t know can be affected by how we conduct ourselves in this world and the energy we put into it. Too many of us are walking around today utterly oblivious to this fact and so ignorant to it that we just assume it’s someone else’s doing, or quite simply the universe working against us. Either way, it is out of our hands and we must just endure it while it lasts. And last it does. At times it seems like we just have a permanent rain cloud hovering over our head and only our head. And yet, the last person we would think is the cause is ourselves. We continue reeling in negativity while the rest of the world moves on. Thus, creating within us more feelings of loneliness and contempt, along with a greater potential to lash out at those around us.
We must understand that when the universe tests us, we have to rise to the occasion and overcome any challenge posed to us. Be it a series of small, yet unfortunate events that cause us to “wake up on the wrong side of the bed”; or even greater challenges that could affect our very way of life. We must face them head on with the knowledge and confidence that tackling life with positive energy will return it to us ten-fold.
What we believe, we create.
It’s too easy to feel antagonized by life, and therefore treat it like the antagonist of our story. But then it will actually become that nemesis to us. If we treat life like the gift and opportunity for greatness that it is, there’s no telling what kind of blessings it will return to us. This does not mean that being happy 24/7 will mean life will be blissful all the time.
Nothing worth having comes easy.
Our lives are shaped by our own outlook. We can either see life’s hurdles as a test to make us better, or we can see it as another gut-punch we don’t deserve. Each path will lead to very different outcomes. What we want to avoid is the ignorance of this reality. The fact that we directly influence this world with the energy we put out and the attitude we maintain. If we are ignorant to this notion, we could very well live a life of turmoil and have absolutely no idea why.
