On the True Nature of Events and Things

Imagine a country passes a new law. For some it opens up huge prospects and opportunities; for others it might quietly wreck their business or their life.

Or say you decide to move the company to a new office. For some employees the commute gets easier, for others — the opposite. Some will be thrilled by the new surroundings; some will miss the old walls.

Any event, any action, any physical object is perceived differently by different people. Each of us brings our own perception, our own appraisal, our own point of view.

The true nature of all events and things is “emptiness.” Each event, on its own, is neutral — neither good nor bad. There’s no good and no evil in it. No thing is, by its nature, either beautiful or ugly. And yet, every time we make an inner appraisal, we charge it with a potential — much like the processes in physics.

Where does that appraisal come from? It comes from the mental constructs that have taken shape in our heads up to this moment — like seeds that sprouted over time.

What matters is that we can steer the potential of an event. We can push it in any direction away from zero, dialing it down or dialing it up.

Take a problem, or even what feels like a disaster in our perception. It’s just an event, a fact that happened. At times even the question “why?” isn’t really useful anymore. What potential will we give it:

— suffer and blame the world until we destroy ourselves (minus ten);

— get upset and revise our forecasts for the worse (minus five);

— start solving the problem and look for ways to recover what we lost (plus five);

— treat the problem as a chance to rethink how we do things and set a powerful new momentum forward (plus ten).

It’s worth understanding that the potential we lay in is the one that gets realized.

Some time ago I started a personal experiment in radically accepting any situation without any initial appraisal. Whatever happened — just happened. And then: what can I do with it? I’ll admit, I’m an emotional person, and at times emotion still gets the upper hand — but the level of constructiveness has gone up noticeably.

Right now I’m sitting in an airport, waiting to board a flight that’s been delayed by seven hours. Instead of a comfortable evening arrival, I’ll probably land in the dead of night. What’s the potential of a wait like that? Writing this post!

Here’s to steering the potential we lay into the events around us! 😎