Every
day we learn of some new danger that can kill us
or reminded of some impending global catastrophe
threatening our lives and every other living thing
on the planet. But what if that wasn’t the case?
Imagine the sudden loss of both your eyesight and
hearing with the resulting lack of incoming
sensory data from those organs. There would be
some time period involved making adjustments to
your new world with only a previous knowledge of
the world before darkness and silence descended.
Now imagine if the loss of sight and hearing took
place at birth. Taste, smell and touch would be
your only way of interacting with the world but
what kind of world would your mind’s eye see
before it? You would basically have to create your
environment from your remaining three senses and
what those assisting you who could see and hear
gave you as information to build on like a puzzle,
fitting each piece so you could integrate into the
rest of society. Now what if they decided to hold
off informing you of those threats the rest of us
take for granted and only gave you their version
of a perfect world? Labeled
disabled, the challenges faced would be character
building tests with the ability to bring out the
very best in a person if perceived that way. The
imagination would have to replace sight and sound
so anything the mind could conceive becomes a
mental simulation of which only a small portion
will correspond with what is really there. If
instead of a handicap, a person were to see it as
an opportunity, the world they built with their
mind might instead turn out to be their biggest
advantage in overcoming the feeling that they did
not fit in with the world around them. Those of us
who can see and hear have solid definitions our
mind associates for each of the items of our
reality but not so for those without such senses.
Disabled? Maybe in their ability to transit from
point A to Point B easily but the freedom they
lack in movement would be compensated by the
freedom of imagination relied on to bring their
reality to life. In their mind, until told
differently, theirs would be a planet of peace and
harmony. In a
similar way, we too bring our reality to life with
our imagination by using it as a tool to remodel
our future to the one we desire. It is not the
physical world we are shaping with our imagination
so much as ourselves in the self-image we see
reflected in the mirror of our mind. The constant
drive for improvement changes that reflection with
our decisions and actions and at the same time
changes the world around us as a consequence. The
key to all this change is a simple smile,
differing only in width or replaced with something
more appropriate to reflect critical emotions. The
importance of this cannot be stressed enough for
no matter the mood, taking on any situation is
always initiated best when a smile precedes you
into a room. Not just a smile to change up your
features but a genuine feeling of happiness
exuding from you like the warm glow of a fire.
Even if you were deaf and blind, it would not keep
you from being able to share that happiness to the
fullest. Now
achieving that happiness takes reminding oneself
that those things affecting you personally are all
important for growth. The bigger things like
global warming, mass pollution, the war on terror
and the current election for the president are
also important for growth if we decide they should
be but it's the emotions generated by events that
determines how that growth takes place. Like the
person lacking the two most important senses, it
is what is admitted into the bigger picture by
yourself and whether what is added brings fear,
anger or happiness. It’s a decision faced by
everyone all the time, how much of the world
beyond our immediate sphere of influence is useful
for growth if it is based on fear or anger?
In contrast, growth based on happiness has an
almost magical quality to it. Not only does the
world seem a happier place, good things seem to
happen, friendships strengthen and family bonds
grow tighter. You may even find education seems to
come easier and the workplace is not as impersonal
as it once. There is only one rule when choosing
to use happiness for growth instead of fear or
anger, no matter how happy you are, there are
always more levels of happiness beyond that. Keep
pushing those limits. In love and light as one,
Russ and Karra
