Last week we discussed victim mindset and how we should avoid blaming others for things that may be happening in our lives. Today, I want to take this one step further and examine, why things happen in our lives the way they do. We all have certain tendencies that keep us in this loop of a specific pattern. Two people trying the same thing and coming out with a different result. I call this Luck of the Draw. Let’s dig deeper.
Although our tendencies are what keeps us in a pattern, have you ever thought about what creates those tendencies within us? We are all predisposed to certain thought patterns, actions, and behavior. It all comes down to our Karma. Our karma influences our thoughts and creates tendencies that put us in these patterns whether positive or negative.
Let me give you an example. There was this famous Indian Buddhist monk named Atisha. He was one of the most recognized scholars of his time. The king of Tibet at the time decided to invite him to teach his people. Atisha happily accepted and went to Tibet. He brought a cook with him. Now Atisha’s cook was known for his bad temper. He was impolite and otherwise rude to Atisha. He would cook the food and then would ask Atisha to eat if he wanted to and would not care if the food was tasty or not. The Tibetan people were watching this drama for a few weeks. Finally, one of them could not resist. He went to Atisha and said, you know, we have good cooks here in Tibet and we are happy to lend you a couple of cooks. Why are putting up with this nonsense from your cook? Atisha had a brilliant answer. He told them he create certain karma that put him in this position and that reminds him that he needed to learn patience. His cook was both allowing him to work out his karma and teaching him how to be tolerant!
You see, all of us are put in certain situations based on our karma and we must accept that and make the best out of our situations. Warren Buffet calls this the Ovarian Lottery. Your fate in this world is decided by where you are born. If you happen to be born in a first-world country, your life will turn out one way versus if you are born in a poor country. This is karma.
So how do we get out of the karmic tendencies we have? The answer is really simple. By being mindful of every decision and every thought, you are breaking that cycle of tendency. So how do we become mindful? The first thing to do is to recognize what type of tendencies we have developed over the years. For example, some of us may tend to get into a negative thought process about someone or something, someone else may tend to make nonbeneficial decisions such as gambling, etc. Once we recognize the type of negative tendency that always ends up hurting us in the end, we can then begin to address this. One thing to be careful of here is not to take on all of our negative tendencies at once. That can get overwhelming. So let’s just focus on one tendency that we can begin to break.
Once we have identified this tendency, mindfulness will help us break the trend. We need to be mindful about when the thought or action related to that tendency begins to creep in. If we are mindfully watching when it does, we will begin to remind ourselves why we want to break that tendency. Initially, it may be difficult to break the habit and you may snap right back into it. That is perfectly OK. In my experience every three or five times you are successful at breaking that tendency, you will fall right back in once. So we start again. After a few cycles, the gap between relapse increases. Now you are not snapping back into your tendency for longer and before you know it, you have overcome this tendency.
So you see, we all have these karmic tendencies or habits. I call it luck of the draw. Our challenge is to not accept those as they are or to blame others for it but to learn to snap out of those karmic cycles. I encourage you to dig deep and identify one tendency you would like to break. It is not easy to identify but with enough introspection, you will be able to do it.