“Discovering the Subtle Costly Mistake Most Miss.”
This mistake is discovered by only a few. The condition of hating your life and loving your life is a fiendish state to live in that does not want to ever come to an end. We get up every morning with the intention of getting less unpleasantness and adding more pleasantness. This state of being does not want to come to an end. In fact, if you ponder your life, your days in the past, you can see you have been doing this for a very long time. Question: Have you moved one bit, made any progress?
Have you succeeded in getting more unpleasantness out of your life and added more pleasantness? This inner condition will say (and you believe this is you saying this), “I am making tons of progress.” This love/hate condition flips back and forth, love, hate, whenever it wants to. You have no control of what you will get or when you will get it. This- hating your life and loving your life are the same thing. You are experiencing one or the other, two sides of the same coin.
If you look closely at these two, you will see that you enjoy both of them. Dispising your life keeps it going. These two opposite positions, which flip back and forth is what Vernon Howard calls the “dungeon life.” If you would quit loving these two conditions, not believing they are you, they would disappear by themselves, and you would find something new.
Observing these opposite conditions within oneself is what starts to dissolve these opposites. One bright day, you will look back and laugh at this former mistake and realize there is much more to life than loving and hating your life. Simply, existing is fine.
Thanks, this is a bad habit to think I must fight through life. Dumb.
Vernon said this: “If you don’t grow by seeing your mistakes, you are a self murderer.” Strong, yes. We need to be very serious about our lives. Serious and light-hearted at the same time.
Just to be reminded that, “I am not my thoughts” -Vernon Howard, gives one instant relief. Being identified with your thoughts is the normal (abnormal) way to live ones life on this earth. So If I believe in my self-love, then like you say, I also have to believe in my self-hate. Both are tied to each other, because they are the same thing. Going through life asleep to these mind movements is unnecessary. The mad mind will say: “It is absolutely necessary.” So the question is: “What is true?”