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Letting Go of Self-Indulgence — self-indulgence is thinking that the world is there to make you happy

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I rend to be clear that all prob­lems are indi­vid­ual prob­lems. The over­rid­ing theme of this blog and my books, has been exact­ly this: 

Who you are and how you are is 100% about you. Who you are going to be in the next moment is 100% about you.
Not oth­ers.
Not the world.
Not your upbring­ing.
YOU!

The world we live in is exactly as we perceive it, and how we perceive it determines what we do. Full stop, no exceptions.

It’s easy to blame, as exter­nals are… well… external. 

So, yes, some­one might yell at you at work, or your kid might chal­lenge you, or your spouse might do some­thing you think is provoca­tive. Sure. Hap­pens all the time. 

But here’s the point. The world… oth­ers… are not there to make things easy for you. I wrote a whole arti­cle about this some time ago, but here’s an illustration. 

I once had a client who was “spir­i­tu­al,” as in new-age‑y. Into affir­ma­tions, thought she heard angels, etc. One day, she fair­ly bound­ed into my office.

“It worked!”

“What worked?”

“My gift!!! I was almost late for an appoint­ment, and I con­tact­ed my angel and asked for help, and just as I arrived, a car pulled out, and I pulled in, and I got to my appoint­ment right on time!!! I asked for a place­hold­er, and I got one!!!”

OK, so I admit to hav­ing a breath or two.

I said,

“Inter­est­ing! So that per­son­’s sole duty in life at that moment was to hold a place… for you?”

She nod­ded, but looked less cheery. 

“And has some­one ever pulled into a park­ing space you just vacated?” 

Now, the cloud of doubt. 

“Um… sure. There was some­one wait­ing for the spot I just described…” 

“So, how does it feel to know that you are noth­ing but a place­hold­er for that, obvi­ous­ly more spir­i­tu­al­ly-advanced person?” 

“Hey! Wait a minute! It does­n’t work that way!”

You get the drift. Her view is com­mon. She thinks that she is the cen­tre of the uni­verse, and that every­one else is a bit-play­er on her stage. 

She also thought her hus­band should act and speak, “…in a way that will not annoy me or make me angry.” Same idea, brought home from the park­ing lot. 

You might say that this “place­hold­er” idea is the crux of all fights, argu­ments, wars, etc. It comes from the belief that my, (or my group’s) beliefs should trump (Hey! Trump!!! This is how he thinks, writ large!!! But I digress…) every­one else’s. 

And oth­ers believe exact­ly the same thing about their views.

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Letting Go of Self-Indulgence

A friend asked me to explain self-indul­gence, and I wrote:

– not accept­ing real­i­ty. It’s like bitch­ing about some­thing, and then wak­ing up to real­ize that no one cares that you don’t like it, and noth­ing changes any­way.
It’s about let­ting go of the need to object to what is.
It’s about shift­ing to being present with what is. Oth­er­wise, you’re let­ting your imag­i­na­tion and inter­nal the­atre deter­mine your expe­ri­ence with what is, and that means you’re miss­ing what is hap­pen­ing by pass­ing it through your “it’s not fair!” fil­ters, and that’s… self indulgent.

The key here is to see our walk for what it is: a solo ven­ture, with oth­ers walk­ing their path some­where nearby. 

The soon­er you “get” that oth­ers’ paths are equal­ly impor­tant, you can turn your eyes inward–to find­ing out what you need to discover. 

As I wrote to my friend, self-indul­gence (which the Bud­dha might have called being asleep, or “igno­rance,”) is

• stop­ping your­self from being self-respon­si­ble because you think oth­ers aren’t cooperating.
• It’s think­ing that oth­ers should put your needs ahead of theirs.
• It’s expect­ing spe­cial treat­ment, and then blam­ing exter­nals when you don’t get what you want.

Whole­ness, being awake, is this:

• Know­ing that what is in front of me is real, is my life. It is what it is, and my job is to relate with my life with elegance.
• Ele­gance is accep­tance of what is, com­bined with hav­ing the free­dom to choose the next step.
• My expec­ta­tion for myself is that, rather than blam­ing oth­ers for where I am, I will accept respon­si­bil­i­ty, and will choose what I do based upon my being awake.

Not easy, as it requires that… well… you choose being awake over whin­ing, fin­ger-point­ing, blam­ing. It requires a sole focus on see­ing through the games and illu­sions that are offered to you, to the truth. It’s your walk, and your path. Will you walk it awake, or asleep?

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