Why We Are Fickle

I took a long walk with a friend over the weekend and during the 11-mile trek she asked me what I thought was the cause of our species' fickleness. For example, why one political candidate is nominated and hailed as great one year but eight years later is old news? Why do fads/trends come in and go out of style? Why are eggs good for us one year and bad the next, and then good for us again? Why are we so fickle?

Imagine a speed boat out on a huge lake. It's being piloted by someone who has the courage/gumption to follow a desire. It looks like fun so you grab the line and now you're skiing behind the boat. And it is fun. All you have to do is hold on while the pilot decides how fast to go, where to go, when to turn, when to stop.

This is why I think we're fickle. Because it is easy to let confident people make decisions for us rather than doing the work that allows us to confidently pilot our own boats. It's easier for the Political Party HQ to tell us who to vote for rather than doing the research ourselves and listening with an open mind. It's easier do what we can to fit in with what TVmedianewsFacebookTwittermagazines tell us we should be doingwearingthinkingeating than it is for us to be quiet with ourselves and to actually hear what our bodies need us to eat, what our hearts believe, and what our minds think. It's just too hard. It's too much work. It takes too long.

And so we strap on our skis and go along for the ride.

But what happens when we want to get off? What happens when we tire of skiing?

We do a couple of things:

1. We make the conscious decision to not play anymore, let go, and fall into the water.
2. We become discontented enough and maybe we grow some confidence and being to pull ourselves toward the boat until we are able to board the craft and take over as pilot.
3. We wait for another boat to come along and convince us it's better, throw us a rope, at which point we let go of the other one.
4. We hold on stubbornly becoming more and more tired and grumpy each day.

I think it's safe to say that most of us are guilty of No. 3 more than we are of the others. This is why I think we eat eggs one year and ditch them the next in favor of quinoa only to add them back in the following year while ditching coffee. We're just jumping from boat to boat because someone comes along and says, “hey, your boat is sooo passe. Why not ski with my bright new shiny boat? See all these other cool people who are skiing with me? Don't you want to be like them?”

This is starting to sound like an after-school special but I think there's truth in it.

So what's the answer?

Of course, I believe meditation is the answer.

Aka. The process of removing ourselves from the bombardment of mental, spiritual, and physical pollutants, that we subject ourselves to everyday in order to focus on the breath and to start the dirty work of cleaning out the energetic clutter that we've accumulated. We have to figure out what our anchor is, what is true for us. And when we find our anchor, those boats will still go zooming by us and we'll bob along in their wake, maybe even drift their way a bit, but we will not take the line. We'll stay anchored to our truths and not get swept away in someone else's current.

But don't take my word for it. Try it out for yourself and find out what's true for you.