The Key to Life
- Mar 30
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 31
The Key to Life - an essay about liberation.
We are brought into this world trained to stand up for our Selves.
We are taught, bred, schooled, forced to defend &
especially to speak up for our -Selves.
We develop strong backbones of Self- hood in order to live & exist & Be in this world.
We fend we defend we protect we guard we fight for our Self- hood.
This is encouraged. This is necessary to Be.
This is how we Be.
This is the Way we Be.
This Is. The Way it Is.
A strong sense of self. Self esteem.
We hold a high five regard for “Me” !!
Because : this is who you are.
Or so, … you are led to believe.
Days pass. Years. We age. We reflect. We question.
We examine our habits.
Our motives.Our modes of operating & functioning.
Our habitual priorities. Our deeply rooted routines.
We interact. We wish the best for others.
We begin to wonder about this ingrained need of Self-Importance :
that so familiar ego-filter lens that we look out at life through.
We learn to love.
We love.
Consideration compassion empathy tender-heartedness humanity brotherhood-sisterhood & kindness slowly, warmly, naturally, & innately matures inside us.
A newly added aspect & perspective about how to relate to our world begins to begin.
Instead of continually looking Out at the world we start to look Inward &
examine how we connect to our -Selves & towards Others.
We recall & hmm question past pain-filled interactions gone bad &
how they why they so unexpectedly & dramatically came to become drama.
We recollect old tired scenes of hurts & recognize repeatedly
a single thread that ties them all together :
negativity with a side of ego swollen supreme Self- importance.
We see our hearts.
We feel our souls.
We look within.
We choose another way.
We live less re-actively.
We consciously & actively make choices.
We start choosing all & we & you & us
instead of the once-ever constant persistent oh sole mio ego.
By choosing all & us & we instead of Eye Me Mine
we turn away from the overpowering force of the ironic ironclad - willed ego.
We slowly relax & dissolve the ego
as the primo solo sole overlord
of all our words thoughts deeds actions.
We stop with all those impulsive runaway non-choices.
We see the distinction of the all about me to the all about not me.
Shift happens.
We learn to live with this new &
improved visionary co-pilot by our side,
who helps us focus &
turn towards the genuinely &
authentically real natural environment that encircles us.
Look at all that beauty out there.
We free ourselves from our -Selves.
“The true value of a human being
can be found in the degree to which
he has attained liberation from the self.”
- Albert Einstein.
The insistent loud chattering roar in the head starts to muffle down to a dull din.
The unheard-of sounds of the world fills us instead.
We hear a new, more peaceful song.
One of observation.
One of listening.
Our feelings become like weather patterns that come & go
& pass through us, no longer dictating our experience of the outside world.
No longer the need to tightly clasp on to them, keep & hold them,
& believe that they are the gospel truth about reality.
No need to believe in “my own little world” small type thinking anymore.
No more my world.
More like the world.
We detach from the harsh over reactive biased “I know for a fact”
ego-control-central switchboard that seems to actually contain
Self- inflicted hunches about reality.
& not the facts.
Opinions.
Ideas.
Inclinations.
A rough estimate.
A Hypothesis.
A theory.
A judgment.
A label.
Tendencies.
Bents.
Notions.
Guesswork.
Suppositions.
Merely suspicions. I suspect.
A pretty rough sketch about reality I reckon.
I suppose.
I imagine.
I assume.
I take for granted.
Poof.
Say : "Bye-bye" predilections.
You don’t know squat.
We relate to the world ready to be In the world, inside the world
instead of dwelling inside our self constructed prison heads.
We sit on our own shoulders observing / being / living / interacting / absorbing
the wow now-ness of each moment by moment by moment.
Similar to those moments in time like the long lost ones when absorbed
in creative endeavors such as dance, music, & the arts in which one :
“loses one’s -Self.” Dat’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. That’s called liberation.
We are in the moment now.
We are not in the ego.
The key to life :
Drop
those antiquated
past
pre-recorded loop tapes
in your cranium
stuffed full of
past
pre-conceived
pre-rehearsed
re-played
over & over
false beliefs.
Instead, interact. Truly interact.
See Be hear live experience taste touch breathe in,
what is right before you.
Live more from your heart instead of your head.
Live more immediately instead of indirectly.
Take the slightest pause.
Give a gap to the choose.
Stop the rush.
Mindfully call the shots of all your behaviors.
Be in the driver's seat of your auto thinking.
Less dependent on cruise control.
So you See & Be in the world more engaged.
With less quick pigeon holing labeling categorizing stereotyping
& overall Self-Right-eous wrong-ness.
Thoughts are not real.
Feelings are not real.
Expectations only sabotages the trajectory
by placing a soggy damper
of wanting to be in control
of all the uncontrollable uncertainties.
The distorted opinions one places
about the how & the what & the the one wishes to translate
upon the outside world to exactly correspond
to one’s inner pre-dispositioned
pre-inclined
predictably
ego- self- interpretations
needs to stop.
Craving predictability is nonsense.
The only known factor
about your own very personal orbit
is the starry sparkly surprise !! factor.
Learn to be ok with the not-knowing. It's really A-ok.
Learn a new ahh ha ha language.
An up to the minute geez wow lingo.
Drop the should-of-could-of-would-of’s.
The past : she’s-za all-lah bye-bye a real gone cat.
Try the Paws.
Translate the world
without the auto-link
to that shrouded
ego-hood that lives
inside that hooded hoodie
you wear in dah Hood.
Accept the certainty
that all things remain uncertain.
And not in your control.
“Relax. Nothing is under control.” - Adi Da
A softer self-caring vocabulary
lightens the load
& illuminates your approach.
It begins with choice.
The key to life is choice.
Choose : not-Self, over I-me-mine-Self.
Choose : the benefits of love,
over the sell-phish Selfish.
The key : Let Love Lead.
"Ego takes everything personally."
- Eckhart Tolle
"How much ‘ego’ do you need ?
Just enough so that you don’t step out in front of a bus."
- Shunryu Suzuki.
"None are so empty as those
who are so full of themselves."
- Benjamin. Whichcote.
"There’s no ego when you are a ukulele player."
- Jake Shimabu.
"Gentlemen, start your egos!"
-Billy Crystal.
"Part of me suspects that I'm a loser,
& the other part of me thinks
I'm God Almighty.”
― John Lennon
"I don’t mind what happens.
That is the essence of inner freedom."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
''The first and the best victory is to conquer self."
- Plato
"In the most ordinary terms, ego-less-ness is a flexible identity.
It manifests as inquisitiveness, as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness.
It is our capacity to relax without knowing, not figuring everything out,
with not being at all sure who we are, or who anyone else is, either."
- Pema Chodron
