“Gnothi seauton” Socrates’ maxim “know thyself” was a common theme in his work. To know yourself in a variety of ways is honorable. You can overextend your thinking and emotions so far in the outer world. The farther away you look, the greater the distance is your sense of purpose. Before looking way out there, consider what is happening within.
Seek first to understand a challenge at its very basic level. Do this by avoiding getting caught in the cycle of trampling the mundane. Keep pressing to get to the root cause of your concern. The root cause is generally planted in the idea of being safe, keeping what is yours, or being or having love. Dissecting details keeps you occupied and away from pursuing the nature of a disturbance. An orderly examination is to focus on one single aspect of a challenge, rather than spread the search too broad.
Notice how the information affects the mind and shows up in the body. Consider what happens when the body reacts to the report of a natural disaster. Weigh the significance within the heart, mind, and belly. The heart beats with an emotional reaction to reach out. The mind entertains a thought that leads itself in the opposite direction of the emotion. The belly tightens, and the breath becomes shallow. Your body is clear in its message to let you know when the world affects your inner workings.
More is happening than what meets the eye and the invisible plays havoc with your inner workings. You rest most effectively when you are calm. When you attempt to connect with what is going on outside yourself, you appear disjointed. Your mind goes overtime to figure out what’s the matter, what happened, and what else can go wrong. This is the nature of upset, rational thought, blame and problem-solving. The human need for order and support is a thing in and of itself. Whether you understand what is happening is irrelevant. Come to peace with yourself first. Be calm in the eye of the storm. In that place, you become the example for others to hold for themselves.
The weight of pressure experienced in a situation is in both what you know and what you don’t know. When you experience freedom of heart and mind, and uncontrolled by desire, there’s a pretty good chance you are okay with your current level of knowing. When you struggle with your thoughts, emotions, and against the weight of the world, pretty good chance you have exceeded your comfort zone of not knowing. The weight remains constant. The weight is not lessened when you ask someone else to carry your burden. The weight becomes lighter when you examine your relationship with being okay with what you know. Be light in your world and comfortable with what you know.
Everyone is born with a purpose. Your purpose may not be to connect with all beings in all ways, that you experience. You may be born to solve not a single one of the world’s problems. Walk as if your next breath is the most important thing you can do because it is. Our human challenge is to stand as witness as the world unfolds. Do so trusting that your not knowing is the right thing for the moment. Know this, it is okay not to know.
