I unfollowed an Instagram page after only one day.
You might think, “Wow, that bad?”, no, it really wasn’t bad. I think they were aiming for a sweet simplicity of thought. The page was full of little affirmations with pretty backgrounds. Lots of beaches and sunsets. And while I didn’t see anything that said, “Live Laugh Love” it still gave me a vibe.
What vibe is that you ask? The implication that simple thinking equates contentment. As though, the less we think, the happier we’ll be. But we live in a society that once (and hopefully still does) place value on education and intelligence only to constantly remind people to disconnect thought and complexity from their lives through removing the thing we need to get to a higher plane of thinking or functioning. Do you see the vicious loop we’re in??? It makes zero sense to me that we will be better by thinking less.
If that were true, the best yogis would be some of the most simpleminded people. But they’re not. They continue to think and analyze the situation and sit with thought. Not to remove it, but to give it room to process and develop. Our thinking isn’t something to run from, its something we need to be better at embracing and being with. When a device is overloaded, you take the time to reboot it, let it cool down or process an upgrade (yoga can give the mind a break like this). You learned a long time ago that by continuing to punch buttons on a machine doesn’t help and can harm. Science and marketing are telling us to value sleep and diet and give ourselves those things. Great, but all sleep isn’t helpful either.
The process of thought, in my opinion, requires an ever-evolving development. Im a big fan of the phrase, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know until you know it.’ By giving ourselves the freedom to evolve our own thinking on the regular lends itself the space to grow and move and adapt. We are one of the most adaptable species on this planet. How are we going to remove thought and continue to evolve? We won’t.
I don’t want to discourage the idea of simplifying concepts into tangible steps or processes, that is productive. That is more of a yogi ideal (look up Samkhya Philosophy). How can we take something and pull it apart to piece it back together so we can understand it better? How can we use the tools available to us to evolve our level of thinking in a way to improve the quality of life for ourselves and those around us?
These are the types of inquiry we need to use to gain a better understanding of ourselves, so when we are hit with the phrase, ‘choose what chooses you’ (ugh) you can transform it into something deeper, for example, ‘lend yourself the idea that many possibilities are an opportunity for growth’ Because if I just rolled with the things that chose me…my life would be much more complicated. You get to choose.