The Catalyst

Greetings,

Last week the topic of discussion was assumptions and how they shape our lives. There were so many elements I wanted to talk about but these Catalysts can only be so long. I wanted to pick up from where I left off. For those who don’t recall, my last statement was “And the cycle of frustration, hopelessness, low self-esteem, anxiety, and quiet desperation will continue until we realize that what we assume is the solution could quite possibly be the problem. “. This seems like a good a place as any to continue.

I’ve heard it said that you can tell a lot about a person by where they go or what they do when they’re under pressure. Some people go to church and pray when overwhelming situations arise. Others choose to self medicate with drugs and alcohol when stressed. Some habits may be illegal like elicit drugs. Some may be legal such as overeating or meaningless sex/relationships. Our vices are often different but we all have them (whether we admit it or not). I bring up these points because I want you to recognize the importance of the statement in quotations in the previous paragraph. A lot of times we look outside for solutions to our problems when we should be looking inside.

Many of us have no clue what life is all about. We wonder aimlessly through life waiting to die. For many religious automatons, life is just a precursor to a better life in Heaven. The idea of Heaven is wonderful but if you anticipate the afterlife more than the one you’re currently living, chances are you won’t do much in the present.

In times like these everyone is looking for a little relief. I know how it feels to not be able to catch a break. We look high and low for answers to our questions. Why is life so difficult? We think to ourselves, “I’m a good person. I pay my taxes. I don’t break the law. I’m courteous to everyone I meet. Yet, I’m still single, I still don’t have a satisfying job, and happiness is always in front of me but I can never reach it.” Sound familiar? The problem is that we’ve been tricked, led astray, and bamboozled. We’ve been told that once we get the house on the hill, we’ll be happy. Once we get that better paying job, we’ll be happy. Once we meet Mr./Miss Right, we’ll be happy. If we accept the Lord Jesus into our heart we’ll be happy. The only problem is that happiness is a decision. Better yet, happiness is a state of mind. If your mind isn’t right nothing in this world or the next will help you. We assume that we need help to feel joy. But in reality, you can make a decision right now as your reading this to be happy. You don’t have to put off happiness until (fill in your own blank) happens. Why wait? Drinking won’t make you happy. The emotional high from sex won’t last. Not even church will relieve the pain of life if your thinking isn’t right. The responsibility of your own contentment rests in your thoughts. No external stimuli will give you the satisfaction you crave. You have to love yourself first. Once you learn to love yourself, then you’ll start to think for yourself. Once you start thinking for yourself, you’ll learn how to encourage yourself. Once you learn how to encourage yourself, you’ll learn how to make yourself happy. And when you can make yourself happy bliss will never leave your side.

“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.” – Orville Wright

Dream Big. Live Bigger.

The All-American

www.rallostyles.com

http://www.thecatalystexperience.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/rallostyles.com <--Follow Me

*Word you’ve never heard…

sternutation /ster-nyuh-TAY-shun/ noun - the act, fact, or noise of sneezing

(I know I didn’t use the word in my causerie* but I just thought it was a cool word. Who knew there was a word for the sound of a sneeze?)

causerie /kohz-REE/ noun - a short informal essay

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The Catalyst

Hello All,

When I first went to college I was so excited. I had a fairly loose leash growing up so the freedom that most students look forward to I already had. More than anything, I was glad to leave my hometown of Augusta and see what Atlanta..well, Marietta…had to offer. When I first arrived in my dorm I met my roommate. I was praying to Jesus that I would have a descent roommate that respected space, noise, and cleanliness and the lord answered my prayers. Of course, the first thing I noticed was that he was white. He wasn’t the Eminem, whigger-type white dude. He was an old Twilight, 98 Degrees looking white guy with the surfer highlights. Now, I wasn’t tripping because I’ve had plenty of white friends so I didn’t feel weird about it. As we introduced ourselves I let him know that I was carefree and that what was mine was his (except for clothes and condoms). I told him he was welcome to my CD collection and as I explained I rattled off a few CDS that I owned naming the music I assumed he would like i.e. Dave Matthews Band, 311, and few others. Little did I know, he owned more rap music than I did. I’m not talking about the bubble-gum Will Smith getting-jiggy-wit-it rap either. He had some of the hardest rap music of the time like TRU and Tela. In this case, I learned not to assume you know someone especially if the assumption is based merely on race (which is racial profiling). Assumptions can be harmful but how else can you think when almost everything you know about life is based on assumptions.

The problem with assuming is that you’re forming an opinion without real evidence. As in the previous paragraph, based on my experience with white guys who looked like my roommate I assumed he wouldn’t be interested in my rap music. Only after I got to know him I realized the error of my assumption(s). It’s funny how big a role race plays in our judgment of others. There are a lot of assumptions we make that more times than not are incorrect. The word “niggardly”* doesn’t mean what you think (neither does the term “bastardize”*). The assumptions we make about people are even more incorrect. We tend to generalize and put people in categories so that we don’t have to get to know them. We can just look at them and know what type of person he/she is. When we see an interracial couple we assume that something other than love attracted the two. “The thick white girl is too big for a white guy so she had to get a black guy.” “The brother is a sellout and thinks he’s too good for a sista.” Don’t like racial assumptions? Well, how about the assumption that all men cheat? All men don’t cheat. Just the ones you (fill in your own blank) with. Not to mention, I know plenty of women who get their “creep” on with efficiency and frequency.

The tricky thing about life is that we can’t help but to assume. There is nothing in life we can know for sure other than we exist, hence the statement “I think therefore I am”. Everything else is calculated guesswork. We can read any college textbook, religious manuscript, or magazine we want but we consciously choose what to believe based on the assumptions we’ve already adopted. Whether you admit it or not, you know nothing for certain. You may have enough proof to satisfy your curiosity but you can never be certain about anything. I’m always skeptical when someone feels they have the answer(s) with absolute certainty. I mean, it is impossible to be aware of everything that is going on around us. Our brain is bombarded with millions of stimuli per second. So much so that our primitive brain can’t focus on everything at once so it only accepts what it deems important. Unfortunately, most of us focus on the same things everyday so we experience the same things everyday. We never try new foods. We have the same tired friends we’ve had for years. We dress the same. We still have the same beliefs we had since we were 5 years old. We assume that what we’ve been told is THE truth so we never take time to investigate on our own. We stubbornly hold on to outdated perceptions with the belief that we will somehow be rewarded AFTER death. No matter what overwhelming evidence proves otherwise we never change our minds. By doing so, we never change. And the cycle of frustration, hopelessness, low self-esteem, anxiety, and quiet desperation will continue until we realize that what we assume is the solution could quite possibly be the problem.

“The path into the light seems dark, the path forward seems to go back, the direct path seems long, true power seems weak, true purity seems tarnished, true steadfastness seems changeable, true clarity seems obscure, the greatest art seems unsophisticated, the greatest love seems indifferent, the greatest wisdom seems childish.” – Excerpt from Tao Te Ching (translated “The Book of the Way”) by Lao -tzu

Dream Big. Live Bigger.

The All-American

www.rallostyles.com

http://thecatalystexperience.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/rallostyles <--Follow Me

*Word(s) you’ve never heard…

niggardly /NIG-gard-lee/ adjective - grudgingly mean about spending or granting: cheap

bastardize /BAS-ter-dīz/ verb-to reduce from a higher to a lower state or condition: debase