IT happens all the time. But in other places, and to other people. Until IT happens to you.
Everyday somewhere, for someone, the world Out There suddenly flips to my world in here. Tragedy, disaster, war and famine are not new phenomena. But IT is suddenly new when now the story is all about you.
When the world changes over night and you are experiencing it in real time or later watching on some news channel, and you are seeing your town, your neighborhood, your world, - that is a revelation. The IT is now relative to the you, the ME. IT is happening to ME.
The -this is what is has flipped into that is what was.
A reconciliation of the ordered daily sun rise and sun set must occur for the mind to balance the ledger of reality. Now parallel worlds exist. There is the world that was, ... and the world that is. The sun is still rising and setting but the shadow world is now home.
There is that phrase that gets voiced almost involuntarily... Wait, What?
IT comes in many forms. A death, an accident, a violent earthquake, a catastrophic fire, a green light turns red and you weren't looking. If the IT has not yet happened to you the experience of the altering may be difficult to comprehend. And there is not much anyone can tell you about the effect IT could have on you, except this:
How you live now has everything to do with how you will manage after IT happens to you. Only you can curate, cultivate and reconcile your personal balance sheet.. But most of us do not even know what a balance sheet is, let alone evaluate our own debt to asset ratio, metaphorically speaking. We live in the material world but for the most part are completely ignorant to the machinery running the show.
In this worldwe live in, most of us, business and finance seem to reign supreme. Even if personally your only inkling of finance is how to pay the rent, or buy food to stave off a personal famine, finance is somewhere in your material world. It is a your business how you choose to live after all.
But forget all about business and finance and the material world, and really do study your personal balance sheet. What are your real assets and liabilities as opposed to your material assets and liabilities? A devastating fire can leave you homeless and with no belongings overnight. A banking collapse can leave you penniless. An emotional collapse,... moral collapse...
What is it that stays with you no matter the disaster, no matter the collapse, no matter the inevitable change?
Intelligence? Skills? Courage? Love? Health? Spirituality? Make your own list.
These are real assets. If we cultivate and grow these personal assets then these will build or rebuild a world in the material realm and beyond. These are the real intangible assets.
What keeps you from moving forward? What keeps me buying unnecessary things? What keeps us stuck in a place we don't want to be? Name the causes ... Fear? Insecurity? Money? Ignorance? Inexperience?.. and see that these causes are real liabilities. If we can name them we can work to transform them.
When we can reconcile our real assets and liabilities, so that we never lose the ability to laugh, but lose the inclination to laugh at others, their differences or failings or follies, ...then we become balanced. Balance gives us the ability to walk a tightrope across hard times. Balanced beings will provide the equity and equanimity needed for building a future when the present has run its course.
The material world is ultimately formed and sustained by forces non material. IT isn't the forces of them against us that that make our world good or bad. IT is me and we who hold the power to create what we wish to see. It is the great work of a lifetime, and it's an inside job.
