Why Can't We Keep Things Simple?

I love this funny yet wise quote: Monkeys are superior to men in this - When a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey. ~Malcolm de Chazal.

Interpret it in whatever way you want. But you can't deny that this quote is saying that a monkey only sees a monkey in the mirror. But if you give a man/woman a mirror, he/she would see more than a man/woman.

We have judgments, pre-conceived ideas, interpretations of what if/what is supposed to be and so on. We make it so complicated for ourselves that we become the cause of our misery, granted on some days we allow ourselves to be happy. More often than not, we gravitate towards the negative, and for no good reason.

In our grandparents' time or even great-grandparents' time, things were less complicated. I do not mean that they do not have to deal with their mindsets, but they had less of a challenge because their world was larger than life and anything else. Now, we live in a reality where the world is so much smaller. Speaking to someone thousands of miles away is no longer an issue, our letters sent electronically is received within a second.

With the fast pace, it just means we have become far more impatient for our own good. This adds to our stress levels and in turn, cause our bodies to react, AND in the long-term -- health challenges.

So having a human experience means, we have difficulty keeping things simple. Notice that I did not say "being human means we have difficulty keeping things simple"? This is where many fall into a big misconception that being humans means that we are forever fated for failure and craziness.

Whenever we falter, people will give us an excuse and say, you are just being human. I find no fault in this; however, the issue is that it binds us to this human-ness and we often fall back into this as an excuse not to do better.

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, we do have perfectionists, who will not allow themselves to make mistakes. And this inevitably translates into misery and disappointment with self and other people.

So what am I saying? Swinging on either side of the spectrum makes us stuck on this idea that being human means we can never reach there. Where is there?

This is not a place, but a state of mind.

While having human experiences means we find difficulty keeping things simple, but being human means something else altogether. I personally believe that this whole thing about the human experience from drama to enlightenment is a pathway for us to become our highest potential.

I read this about two decades ago, and I really like it: the sound HU in ancient Egyptian times was the sound of divinity, and when sounded, it allows us to connect to the inner core of our beings, bringing us back to the essence of our power and to where/when we were created within our hearts.

When combined with the word MAN -- HU-MAN, it means we are mortal beings with our core connected to the sound of divinity.

Isn't this interpretation so divine? I like it a lot. I love to think that all these dramas that we experience will eventually bring us to enlightenment, and this is what being human is all about. The human experiences are merely opportunities for us to find our way. There is no other way to learn and grow except to experience the lessons.

We are not our experiences. They are methods for us to get there.

So when we say we are just being human -- we need to remember this: in all the complications we experience it is our inner urge and desire to become more enlightened.

An enlightened mind simplifies and comes to a full circle of their human experiences and becomes a HU-MAN BEING, in the most real sense.

(Does it mean the monkey is more enlightened than the human? I imagine some of you asking, the answer is of course no. The monkey is simple, but not enlightened because it doesn't have all the human experiences of drama)

So, the next step, how do we simplify and uncomplicate things, and become less affected by drama?

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