Mind Crippling Outside Forces
A cloudy, rainy day depresses us. When we eat "bad food," we feel that our behavior gets worse. The talk show host on our car radio gets us so mad we almost wreck our car. We have bad karma, which has ruined our life. If only we could release the effects of our past, we could get on with our life. Satan is out to destroy us. Certain kinds of language, attitudes, or expression really piss us off. At a moments notice, we storm out of movies when they don't live up to our elitist expectations. This website annoys us to no end. Our buttons are easily pushed. We complain without difficulty. Our life is screwed up because we have bad astrology; our Mars is in Scorpio.
The fact is that our choices, far more than our environment or where we live, controls our destiny.
Many people have hypnotized themselves to automatically feel that imaginary, external forces (or fictional super-beings) are controlling them. But allowing our mind to be heavily influenced by external forces is to lessen our personal power. Without poverty, abuse, or living in high crime areas that require sheer fortitude to survive (or other extreme conditions), outside factors usually have little or no influence over the moods of reasoning adults (their productivity, happiness, and long-range future). Except in statistically rare conditions, to allow our future to be influenced by all but the most direct forces would be to relegate the potency of our mind to the position of vermin.
A low point is reached when we act on the advice of all the rage TV talk show hosts. Too, accepting far-fetched, immature delusion can invisibly eat away at our ability to reason and enjoy life. But there is no rational cause to believe our destiny is controlled by unreal beings and forces. Even so, millions of people actually believe that such beings control them, and are far more powerful.
The destruction that false beliefs have inflicted on individuals throughout history is immense. Only by acting on reason can one avoid or minimize the effects of many real and imaginary forces.
Keep in mind that people steeped in the mystical tend to stress the ability of outside forces, environments, and self-styled authorities.
Enormous numbers of people seek the automatic guidance of mystical nonsense. But to allow ourselves to be controlled by totally invented nonsense is just that… nonsense.
