Self Awareness
The Sound of Silence
And the sound of water
Jaspar walked in the cool night air to the meeting hall. He took a seat near the back; far from the stage. He had made a commitment to himself to come each week and listen to the speakers but he was not very excited by it. Every story seemed like just a different version of the same old story.
Each week members of the group would take the stage and talk about how they overcame their personal problems and their perceived adversaries to their problems in order to achieve some perceived notion of success.
How boring their lives would be if they did not have some perceived adversaries to their success that they needed to overcome. It was all about overcoming, winning, and achieving. Luckily, they all had monumental obstacles to overcome, intensely powerful adversaries to beat, and ruthless self images to obliterate. They all gathered together each week to pat themselves on the back.
Jaspar knew this was a good thing and that it helped people. But he felt that he did not fit in to this methodology. For him, it was not about overcoming but rather about letting go and moving in new, other directions. It was not about winning but rather surrendering — something frowned upon by the group. To the group it was all about fighting and fighting and fighting…
