How often have we interpreted reality to mean something other than what it is? If we ever apply reason to reason, we will find that it's a coping mechanism we use waiting for the piece of reality that we desire to show up.

For many, this rationale makes life a waiting game. Life waits for no one. It is constantly moving through us and around us and has no time for the retardant known as reason. Reasoning is our attempt to stop life from moving. You would have better odds attempting to control the tides.

Reasoning reality is a conditioned reaction to pretend what is, isn't. If we ever did the math on "Everything happens for a reason," we would find an equation that you can't prove. It's backwards logic.

It's an offshoot of Descartes' maxim "I think therefore I am." If you did a little reasoning on that notion, you would easily find that the corollary is the case - I am therefore I think. Think about this: How true was his phrase the first year of your life?

Thinking and reasoning are late arrivals at the party who want to reverse the tone of something that's already in motion. They are the wet blankets that want to dampen the flames of reality in hopes of capturing it in a jar to use it their way, another day.

I'm not suggesting that we douse hope, but just expose it for what it is - an inactive reaction to reality.

"It's God's will" is another version of reactive reasoning. Imagine the chutzpah involved in making God into our own image and likeness. That's what you do every time you ascribe human values to the force of life that animates everything.

The action that countermands the fuzzy math of reasoning away reality is response.

Response is the only time we use the free will that we claim we have. We have mislabeled our conditioned reaction to reality as free will. There is no choice involved in a reaction. It's pure stimulus/reaction.

Imagine what would have happened if Thomas Edison had reasoned away his failed experiments as "God's will." You may be reading this observation by candlelight. He responded to reality instead of trying to explain it away.

If it makes you feel better, by all means, continue to believe in the notion of all things happen for a reason. It may be the protection you need until you have enough awareness to recognize that there is no reasoning away reality.

The remedy is always response. Responding to "what is" is an action, a choice. Reacting to "what is" is homogenizing reality to fit into our conditioned logic of inactivity.

Reacting gives us a reason not to take action. Responding presents choices to act on.

The upside of reasoning is that it allows us to evaluate another perspective, like this one, that may have been hidden from our view. The trick to growth is determining which filter to use in evaluating new information. Will it be reaction or response?

The reaction would be to complete this sentence. "All things happen . . ."

The response would be to put a period after the word "happen."

One will stop you in your tracks and the other will move you forward.

 

All the best,

John