This could change everything.
I don’t always live up to my ideals.
Dang, was all this so recent?
Thursday (last Thursday, by the time this appears), I was puzzling over how I seem to lose so much time. Wrote in my diary, “OK, so I spend my day scrolling back and forth on FB and Yahoo! looking for something to be angry about.” I had not been consciously aware that I’d been doing that, and this is diametrically opposite from my ideals; as expressed, for example, in the post, “Upward.”
So, the thing comes that every time I approach FaceBook, I need to first check my emotional posture and see what I’m about; and fix it, if need be.
Friday morning when I first approached Yahoo!, I asked myself what I was looking for, and found I was again seeking some pretext for anger. The thought was, “I want to see what people are saying.” In response, I somewhat flew into a rage, and answered, “It’s not what they say, but what I do, that matters.”
Will I, or will I not, get my life in order?
It was as if someone had thrown a switch. For the next hour or two, I felt as I don’t recall feeling ever before in this life.
I had become directed from within.
There are various ways of naming this state, and they’re subject to semantic confusion. One may speak of “inward direction” versus “outward direction;” the Wikipedia article on “Motivation” discusses “intrinsic motivation” versus “extrinsic motivation,” but its description does not quite match my experience. The question is, where do I get the directions for my activities from? Where do I get my marching orders?
Direction from within involves doing things simply and merely because I flat out want to. All my life, I have instead been principally “directed from without,” doing things because others ask or tell me to. My years as a legal secretary provide a good example: in that job, all day long, one is responding to external demands. And my whole life has largely been that way. I have never been a person of strong desires.
I have been more a person of fears of disappointment, fears of uncertainty; as I face right now, for example, in the housing search.
Features of direction from within: In this state, …
I am aggressive, assertive, and courageous.
I own my power: From this state, I would have read Anatomy of the Spirit, by Carolyn Myss, a completely different way.
I have permission to want anything I might want. There is no worry about whether or not what I want is “right.”
Fear of failure is nearly non-existent. I am more willing to take risks. I don’t much care whether or not I get what I want; I’m going to work for it anyway.
Manifestation becomes easier or more likely. (1) We are drawn toward what we desire. (2) I’m going to work for the thing. (3) Related: Heart and soul.
Decisiveness becomes easier, as (1) there is no fear of failure and (2) it is easier to choose between competing impulses.
Courage can overcome fear. On the one hand, courage facilitates strong desires; on another hand, strong desires overcome fear.
All this may have come about in response to my prayers for courage, manliness and strong desires. (I currently pray for those three things, by name, every day.) I don’t know where that “switch” is, that I may throw it again, but, God willing, I may inch closer to it and eventually find it and throw it at will.
This could change everything.
Related: I will not be disappointed.
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