by Abitiki
People should be different than they are. Is that true?
Can I absolutely know that people should be different than they are?
Check it with reality – does it happen? Is it even possible for anyone to be other than they are in this moment?
No. Nobody is ever different than they are, in this moment.
People, right now, simply are as they are.
This moment, and all that appears in it, is exactly as it is.
There’s no escaping it.
This is it.
How does it feel, how do I live my life, when I believe the mind-created story, ‘people should be different than they are’?
I judge them and find them wanting. I feel such prrrresssure to tell them all about that.
Then I do the same thing to myself.
Non-judgement goes out the window. Suddenly the world is full of ‘good’ & ‘bad’.
Acceptance goes out the window. Suddenly everything about ‘those others’ gets irritating.
Non-resistance goes out the window…I’m resisting the truth of the way people appear in front of me in this moment.
And I add time to myself, because I’m wanting some kind of different, better, future, where people are being the way my mind believes they ‘should’ be…so I’m not even here, just gone off somewhere in my imagination, where people are different…my mind builds a fantasy and I want to move out of this moment, and move in to the future projection of the fantasy…’wouldn’t it be nice if people were different’ (can I absolutely know this is true?).
How it feels? Irritating, frustrating, sad, depressing, resentful at their dreaaadful ‘wrongness’…and so on.
‘I’ll be happy later, when you’ve all sorted your selves out at last, and I can’t rest until you do’ means I may never be happy, never be at peace.
All because of believing one little story.
How would it feel, how would I live my life, without the mind-created story, ‘people should be different than they are’?
Without the story, I’m able to meet people as they are, free of the mind’s pressure to be always caught up in evaluating every little thing and comparing it to the mind-made fantasy.
Without the story, I’m able to be accepting. Less of my energy is caught up in uselessly resisting the reality of the way people are, so I’m more able to open to whatever is really there.
Without the story, I’m able to peacefully allow the truth of how people are into my perception.
I’m able to meet them directly, free of mind-filters that block me from being able to accept whatever they bring into this moment.
I find myself experiencing a state of childlike wonder, freely curious about whatever comes.
Is there any stress-free, pain-free reason to hold on the the story, ‘people should be different’?
No. That story just creates separation & suffering.
Is there any reason to let go of believing in that story, any reason to let go of endlessly bringing that into my interactions with others?
Many reasons.
Can I turn it around, and find a way that the opposite of the story might be equally true?
People should *not* be different.
Why not?
People should not be different in this moment, because people can only be as they are, in this moment.
Nothing else is even possible right now. Reality very simply is as it is.
People should not be different in this moment, because how they are is not my business, but theirs.
I’m not God. I don’t run the world. And this is just as well, while the mind keeps on wanting to be such a dictator.
People should not be different in this moment, because the way they are keeps showing me things that help me to wake up to my ‘self’ – a wonderful gift, which I find I can be grateful for.
Turn it around again.
*I* should be different.
Why is this also equally true?
I should be different, because I notice my mind has no end of ideas for how others should be, and if they’re such great ideas, then surely they’re for *me* to live?
I should be different, because I notice I’m ignoring what I profess to believe, by wanting others to change; the whole ‘non-judgement, non-resistance, acceptance’ thing…what happens to that in the moment I’m wanting others to change?
I should be different, because I seem to think it would be so easy for *them* to be different.
Is there another turnaround?
My thinking should be different.
Because my thinking is making me unhappy, making me annoyed and frustrated with others who are innocently being as they are, and that is within my business to do something about.
And my thinking should be different, because I find I’ve been believing a story which turns out, on inquiry, to be a lie. And it hurts to believe it, because that’s what a lie feels like.
That’s how to recognise a lie.
And my thinking should be different, because it’s my job, to look at my thinking and find out where it might be creating suffering for myself and others.
And in seeing the lie for what it is, comes a return to peace, present-moment reality, and an open heart.
Suggested Reading:
The Living Room 
Abitiki,
I like your post…
However… 🙂
I live in the Netherlands. I believe it to be a country where most, of not all things, are relatively good.
I also watch television however…
And right now I see a man crying and screaming on al-Jazeera because his whole family has been shot. And when I look at the despair and the anger in his eyes, I wonder how this man would feel about your words.
Please believe that I do not want to say that I do not agree with you…
I only want to point out that stories are sometimes very real. That “the other” is not always innocent and that it is sometimes very urgent that “the other” should change is way’s.
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Like to apologize for my outburst of despair.
It seems that it is better for me, not to watch to much television or world news. 🙂
Ah, well…it can only be applied to the moment – ‘this can’t be different, now’.
This is as it is, now.
Only for this one moment.
The innocence is in the inability to act any differently, just for now.
Acceptance and surrender only ever called for in this one moment…the tiniest movement of opening and letting go…and seeing the results of centuries of our seeking power to change the other.
In this moment also, space in the heart for change, for what the news doesn’t show, the open hands and hearts, the reaching out, the rising above, that is also happening in this moment, all over the world, in all situations.
Love,
Abi.