I heard an interesting prospective on life over the weekend. As a disclaimer, I don’t prescribe to everything he said. He attributes almost everything we’ve been told to be a falsehood and deception on someone’s part. But I’ve found value in listening to people I don’t agree with, because it helps me understand. That said, I found it interesting to listen to his ideas, and then he shared something profound, and my heart skipped a beat.
The host of the talk show was asking about how we can fix the problems of the world and how we can deal with all of these scary issues around the world. John Lear responded bluntly “You’re not here to change the world. You’re here to be changed by the world.”
I stopped and caught my breath as the idea sank in. “You are here to be changed by the world.”
I tend to get overwhelmed with the problems in the world. And as I processed the thought above I realized that I feel it’s my job to fix them… And while I can make a positive impact on the world, it’s not my job. Further it’s delusional to think that I can fix the world. It’s not my role and it’s a waste of my energy to worry about it.
I have often been afraid of the idea of being changed by the world. In my mind the implication is that you would become like the bad things in the world (AKA worldly). But there is also good in the world. And the interplay of these two forces mold us into the people we are becoming. It plays in very strongly to the idea of the world as a training grounds. We are here to experience this life and be shaped by the experience.
As with all profound truths, it is just one facet of the bigger picture. But this aspect helped as I process the action of letting go of the things I cannot control. So I invite you also to let go of the things you really don’t have a handle on to begin with.
Namaste,
Kevin
