Looking at the world through that filter is quite powerful. It makes no room for me to do anything but look at and increase my awareness of what I’m setting in motion. My thoughts, my deeds, my smallest actions are what I see made manifest in my world. If I’m not liking (or even if I am liking) my life and its experiences it’s very useful to hold onto the notion that it is my life and I am creating it moment by moment.
This is anything but narcissistic or magical thinking. It is an exquisitely elegant way to embrace life. Doing so eliminates blame, resentment and even anger. Anger is an interesting way to explore the implications of this notion. Let’s assume that anger is a “secondary” emotion that is experienced as the consequence of feeling I have no control in a situation (or am powerless to change a situation). By embracing the idea that there is nothing out there but me I now have a basis by which I can address the experience of powerlessness. This positioning allows me to experience an unpleasant event as nothing more that the consequence of something I’ve put out into the world – most likely the way I perceive the world. Now, this doesn’t mean I can change what is. It also doesn’t mean I control what other do. It will still be unpleasant! However, experiencing something as unpleasant is not the same as being angry about its occurrence.
Why is this important? One of the major consequences of anger is a diminishing of resourcefulness. I rail against the unfairness and unjustness; I strike out in retribution and retaliation; I become paralyzed into inaction. I am not in a position to be creative, to learn and, ultimately, I end up in a non-generative spiral. I want to have my life and my experience of life be “ideal”. I set it in motion. And, only I can shift its trajectory and direction. When I can get to this point of acceptance life works.
There is nobody and nothing out there but me.
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