A Thought Experiment on Limitation

How much of your thinking is driven by the need "to get?" Framed this way, how much of your behavior is driven by the need to escape suffering through some external gain? Underlying such a thought process is a logic of limitation. And it is this limitation that causes suffering.

Have you ever had the thought; if I just get that promotion then my life will be sorted? Or, if I get that house, car, job, or those shoes then my life will be better? Maybe, for a fleeting moment your life will feel more complete, but does it ever stop there?

Normally, once we've obtained the thing we've worked so hard to get, the shine rubs off and we quickly place our attention on the next thing "to get." Sure, we all have certain needs to be met; needs like shelter, clothing, water, food, love, connection... But over and above our basic needs, to what extent has a premise of enough is never enough, or I'll never feel complete until.... formed the basis of your thinking, communicating and behaving?

Going one step further, does this ideology serve you, your communities and the environment? This is a scarcity-based logic of thinking, one driven primarily by ego, one made more robust by the system of the  industrial growth economy (think of the need to get, amass or accumulate) that perpetuates the cycle of suffering.

It's this type of scarcity-based thinking that results in us living inside foreign identities. Media, culture, education have told us this is the way, and that's that. And so we loose touch with who we truly are, with what's important to us (our unique values) and with the big picture of why we're here.

The only way to deconstruct such a limiting narrative is to question or contradict the base upon which it has been built. To do this requires tremendous introspection, some of which can be painful. But the result can be a new narrative of truth, peace, abundance and well being. Ask yourself which line of logic forms the basis of your thinking and go from there.