Acting Out of Love or Out of Fear?
The mind-body dilemma in practice
Have you tried to live on this planet without making a single choice for a whole day? I can’t think of any mission more impossible than that, given that even if we spend the day in bed, we have by default chosen to stay in bed.
When making a decision, it is easier to simply enquire “do I want this or not?,” or “should I do this or not?,” instead of “what am I feeling that is leading me to act like this?”
I might choose to sleep the whole day because I am exhausted after overworking myself for weeks. Or maybe I went a bit too crazy the previous night. So I spend the day in bed out of shame and sadness for something that happened then that I don’t want to deal with just yet. Only I know.
Yet, life would be easy if our reasons were that straight-forward. I can feel empathy for someone begging for money on the street and at the same time feel superior for my kindness of giving money. I can help a friend for the sheer joy of spending time together. But I can also believe that this is my duty as a friend, and I fear losing my friends if I am not “friendly”.
All of these facets could support me taking the same action in their own way, and they can all co-exist. Yet, where I am acting from and what I get to experience is entirely…
