Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries, and someone roughly bumps into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground.
As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, 'You idiot! What's wrong with you? Are you blind?'
But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you is actually blind. He, too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries, and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: 'Are you hurt? Can I help you up?'
Our situation is like that. When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.
― B. Alan Wallace
This is one of my favorite stories regarding perception and perspective and the power we have to choose our experience, to choose our own adventure.
How many times in a day are we running around bumping into things, people, and challenges, screaming, "ARE YOU BLIND?!"
What would it look like if we changed our hostile "ARE YOU BLIND?!" into a gentle and concerned "Are you hurt? Can I help you up?"?
I challenge and encourage you to switch your "ARE YOU BLIND"s into "Can I help you up"s.
In particular, I challenge you to give this love, care, and concern to yourself. The next time you feel like you have failed, or it seems like the anxiety and depression are defeating you, or you feel like you've made some terrible mistake...I encourage you to turn inward and offer yourself the compassion and support you long for and ask, "Can I help you up?"
I help people up.
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