Fear vs. Gratitude

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice. - Meister Eckhart

We live in a big bathtub of fear. Fear is what animates our lives and it is so ingrained that we don't even realize it. But all it takes is that we look closely at our own life to see how true this is. Ask yourself why you do the things you do. If you are honest, you will ultimately get to the root of the matter and it's always the same thing...fear.

Why do you have an alarm clock to wake you up in the morning? (perhaps because you are afraid to oversleep and be late to work) Why do you go to work? (perhaps because you are afraid if you don't your life will collapse..no money..no food, etc.). Why do you brush your teeth 2-3 times per day? And the list goes on. The only way that you could refute this is if you are doing something that you absolutely enjoy and couldn't think of something better to do.

This all sounds kind of pessimistic, but fear is some pretty interesting stuff if you take a good look at it. It runs the world. But it also can't sustain us anymore. We all are slowly waking up to the fact that the way the world is run at present cannot continue forever. Maybe it can't even continue for another decade..or less. There is some pretty scary stuff out there all about how the world is headed on a crash course for something. I can't pretend to know what, but it looks like it will be a lot worse than what we have now.

So here is my 2-bit notion to save the world. We need a new way to run our lives. A completely new substrate from which we can continue to grow and lead more satisfying lives. I think that the new replacement for fear is to live our lives based on gratitude. Now, this isn't my novel idea. A lot of thinkers promote the idea and I know from personal experience that being conscious of your own gratitude can really make magical things happen. But so far, not many of the people that I have heard talk about gratitude (with 1 or 2 exceptions) really are promoting it the way it could or should be. Gratitude as fear replacement.

A lot of people have heard or dabbled in the idea of law of attraction. Well what I am talking about here is kinda different. If you have read about or tried to use the so called law of attraction you might find that you end up kind of cold. Like maybe some things happen and it's kinda cool but nothing that brings about the kind of change that you really wished it could. The book "The Secret" was a huge phenomena. But guess what? Most of those people who read and applied the concepts aren't living in mansions, appearing in blockbuster movies, or walking around as bikini models.

The thing about this is that people aren't aware of how much fear runs their lives and makes choices for them. I can use "the secret" to help find me the relationship of my dreams. But wait...did you really ask yourself why you want a dream relationship? Did you really look at your reasons? If you find that kernel of fear at the bottom (fear of being alone) then you have already derailed the process for yourself. Did you try to use "the secret" to bring you a million dollars? Look close and see if fear is fueling that desire somehow. I think this point is somewhat emphasized in "The Secret" but I think that it was NOT emphasized enough.

We need a new way to run our lives. That is why I did what I did. I wanted to take a stand against fear. I asked myself what would you do if you weren't afraid? And here I am. Now that doesn't mean that I am not scared!!  Cuz believe me, the nights in the Redwoods was some scary shit (which I will talk about soon enough). So here it is world. This is my idea. Gratitude will take you places that fear can't. And if my experiment fails, then I was dead wrong. And I will be the first to admit it.