Element #1 Fight The Old Guard
Collect the negative clues that lead toward awareness
“Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.” — Bruce Lee, legendary martial arts fighter
“It is in vain, sir,… there is no peace,” he shouted standing upright, one hand in an elevated position. “The war is actually begun!” Patrick Henry, American attorney and orator for the American Revolution, was enraged. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” Henry was aware that infringement on liberty was intolerable and that a different future was necessary.
Over the past decade colonists attempted to repair the relationship with their mother country. At every turn, they lost an ounce of liberty as the British Crown extracted more from its colony. For a long time, the collective level of pain amongst colonists wasn’t high enough to challenge the status quo. The process of awareness toward what was happening was gradual. The colonies were doing well economically. Initially colonists believed in evolution and co-operation. As the Crown extracted more from its colonies and liberty began to erode colonists began to come together collectively to challenge the status quo.
When the British granted a monopoly to the East India Company over American tea trade, infuriated Patriots in Massachusetts dumped tea worth thousands of pounds into the Boston Harbour. To punish colonists for their defiance, the British Crown passed a series of punitive laws known as the Intolerable Acts of 1774. “We must fight,” Henry encouraged his fellow men one year after the Boston incident, “I repeat, sir, we must fight!” In a call to protect liberty, he exclaimed, “I know not what course others may take, “but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
One day I looked through old family photos. As I flipped through the photo album, I looked at my old self: energetic and joyful for life. Now I had little energy, little joy for life. I had lost living in the present moment and was trapped in the past or future — a past that was full of regrets and a future where I didn’t see possibilities. I was shocked. How did I let this happen? It felt as if I was looking at two different people. I had stopped being myself. To protect myself from the world, I had built my own prison. But being trapped in my own thinking, I also became a prisoner of my own mind. At least, through a lot of pain I had slowly become aware of my situation. It was time for change.
The first step in changing yourself is awareness. Without realising that the status quo needs to be challenged, nothing will happen. Collect the negative clues of what is not working in your life, of where you find the pain. A frog that is put into boiling water will jump out right away, but if you put the same frog into cold water that is slowly heated the frog will remain oblivious to the danger and die. Don’t be the frog and become aware about changes when it’s too late.
This is an extract from Patrick Daniel’s forthcoming book ‘The Thinker’, out in early 2017.