Daily Post #442 Be the light
Now and again, we all find ourselves in a situation when we hope for everything to magically work itself out, just like that.
In the ancient Greek tragedies they used the concept of Deus Ex Machina, “God from the machine” as a way to introduce a divine intervention that fixed or turned things upside down , usually at the end of the play.
And the darker the days and more hopeless it feels, the more we tend to look for and lean on support. Religion for instance serves that purpose very well. When we can blame or thank something outside of our own control, when we we feel there is something or someone with a bigger plan for us, we can surrender our own control to this higher deity.
When everything is either a blessing or a curse, we can construct ways of being a part of something bigger, and feel better about ourselves not being up to par at all times.
It also gives us an external force to blame for things that go wrong or can’t be explained.
I am not an atheist, neither am I religious per se, I’d say I am agnostic and see myself as one of billions and billions of humans that have lived, and will live, on this planet through the ages. Seen in a bigger perspective I am a grain of sand, no, an atom in a grain of sand in the biggest desert you can imagine.
I don’t believe in divine intervention, I neither thank or blame an outside force for things gone good or bad, they tend to happen by themselves anyway. I can influence what happens to me to a certain extent, but one thing I always can do is to decide on how I take what happens to me in stride.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychologist and holocaust survivor, formulated his theories of Logotherapy in the concentration camps he was imprisoned in, which ended up in the book called “Man’s Search for Meaning”.
In his book he writes; “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
During the times of my life when I have been in dark places, I too have been searching for a light, something to shine the way, something or someone to give me a sign.
But I always to the same conclusion, there is no higher force that will help or hinder me, there is only me and my choices, and the way I choose to handle life will affect how my life turns out.
And Viktor Frankl again; “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
And to be to find my own meaning, to see my own light, I need to be the light. And the best way for finding my own light is by helping others find theirs.
So when feeling down and dark, and the world seems to be going in the wrong direction, don’t sit back and hope for divine intervention.
Realize that you are the light, cracked and broken as you are, and if you find it hard to find motivation to nurture your own flame, then help someone else with theirs.
By helping others see their light within, you will discover your own.
