Why Is It So Hard?

What makes changing so hard? Because our habit inflicted life gets some positive strokes out of the things we choose. We get some payback for the ways we have learned to be, or we wouldn’t do those things. We are barraged by things in the world that might make us happier; better looking, more popular, less troubled and a thousand other things. The advertisers sell us on emptiness, and fear. They show us in images what we lack (what we are empty of) and then make us feel insecure about being empty and lacking. Then they provide us with the solution that will fulfill all of our dreams and remedy the problem. We look and listen and drool and otherwise go mind-numb after each installment. Then we simply and efficiently adopt the language and the ideas behind the ad and we got out looking for the thing that will make us feel less empty. Always, Always, Always, you look outside of yourself for the goodies and the healing of your emptiness and woes. You are forlorn, so you look for a man or a woman. You are empty and you fill it with food. You are lacking and you strive for more money and more power over others. All of these things make you angry inside and more empty. So you have to look more voraciously and ravenously for more outer things to fill the void of your empty life. That is the hardest thing to watch people do and it has got to be the hardest thing that people will invest time and energy into.

The hard way is not what a spiritual person does. A spiritually motivated person figures out the cost of the separation and pain from losing oneself in a million empty promises and mirages of promise. That cost is the loss of your sense of soul. It is to lose the joy of being. In being, there is nothing you have to do, just be. In being, you don’t have to get anything, or prove anything, or acquire anything or struggle with anyone. You just have to relax in the simplicity of being yourself, knowing God loves you and God is inside you. When you know God inside, you stop looking outside for anything. You see things and people outside, but they cannot add anything to you if you are filled with love and feel peace inside. What can the world give you when you have God’s love inside your heart? Nothing.

If you want it hard, struggle like crazy to acquire adulation from other people. Beg for recognition from those who do not know how to love yet. Pine for a partner who can really appreciate you, when in fact, you cannot show that same level of appreciation for others, much less for yourself. To be outside yourself, looking outside yourself, that is hard.