New Understanding

Essay prompt: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Source: Common Apps Essay prompts

The most transformative experience I had was prompted by a book. I spent a considerable chuck of the winter of 2018 listening and re-listening to The Power of Now by Eckart Tolle. When mentioning this book, I often face a little counterintuitive fact; it is very hard for me to properly describe what this book is about. There is a book that had the greatest impact on my mindset and my life, and here I am unable to communicate what the hell it is about. 

Sometimes I say it is about the search of the self, sometimes I say it is about mindfulness. In saying that it makes me and other people think of other mindfulness or spiritual texts, but that really isn't a good description of the book. For me it isn't about the words written in that book, it is the experience I had when listening to them, it is that every time I listen to or read them, I feel a shift inside me. That is what the book is about to me, the experience. 

There are many things that we think we know, maybe we've heard them before as facts or opinions. In time, and if the universe conspires in the right way, we come to really know them, we realize that we have been missing this knowledge, even when we thought we had it. 

This book prompted a realization I had that winter, one of things I thought I knew but really didn't. It doesn't sound terribly novel; whatever the state of my mind and heart, its source is within. 

Primary reality is within, secondary reality is with out. The Power of Now - Eckart Toll

I had been struggling at that time, I continue to struggle today. The difference is that my struggle was often directed outwards, I would feel discontent and anger at life situations and people in my life. What I found out is that it is really easy to assume the source of my thought and emotional patterns to be the external world, to blame the other. It requires very little work to do so, almost no work, it is a reactionary, almost unconscious activity . 

What requires much more work, and perhaps why very few people do it, is looking inside when one is struggling. To recognize that how one feels and thinks is a product of their perception of the world, and their perception is in their control. It has little to do with external environment and other people. This could be misinterpreted as saying that we should never blame anyone for anything. It really isn't my intention. Reactions are prompted by life situations, life situations include how other people act, they could be unfair. That being said, it is in our control to moderate our internal environment in response. It is not easy, it is hard work, it is a practice.

This practice has another benefit; it makes one take things less personally. Just as my own thoughts and emotions mainly arise from within, other people's thoughts and emotions arise within themselves too. When someone directs their frustration or anger at me, other than justifiably hurting for a bit, I remind myself that it isn't completely me they are mad at. They are going through things inside, they have reasons and motives that have been taking shape since they were born that play the bigger role in how they act. This is separate from me. It is possible I have acted as a trigger, but I am not the source. It usually isn't personal, one way or the other.