On one level, it definitely appears as if we’re responsible for saying and doing the right things, we have some degree of free will, and we make choices throughout life that matter.
And on another level, you have to wonder: How do we do all that?
If we have free will over our actions, why do we do some of the stuff we wish we didn’t? If we have some say in where our mind or emotions go, why in the world do we have them going where they go sometimes?
Perhaps it’s more that life is living us—actions are taken, thoughts are thought, feelings are felt—and then the narrator tells a story in which we made it all happen.
I did an exercise with The Little School of Big Change community recently. I asked them to close their eyes and think of someone they know.
You can do it now.
Some sensory information showed up, right? A sign, smell or sound? Maybe you saw or heard their name, if not their face.
How did you make that choice? How did you make their face or name appear? Tell me how you did it.
Your mind may think it can answer these questions. It’ll say that you thought of your favorite person, or that the person chosen is someone you just had lunch with so they were fresh in your mind.
But none of that explanation tells me how you made the choice. It doesn’t tell me how you made it happen because, perhaps, you didn’t.
Perhaps we don’t.
Perhaps life lives us. Thoughts arise. Conditioning runs. Brains spit out what they spit out.
Can you imagine what it might be like to know that choices and decisions, what happens or doesn’t happen, is not your responsibility?
You’d be free to simply enjoy the unfolding.
