What is the most scary experience I have had so far?

If we are talking about Halloween then I am not really scared of anything.  Honestly speaking, I find it rather trivial.  However,  in the general topic area I think there is a range of emotion on a scale from worry to fear.  Unless we deal with these kinds of feelings in an appropriate way then it is very hard to live a joyful and meaningful life.  So, it is important to recognize that our lives are basically divided into two main kinds of events:  things we can control and things we can’t.  When we start analyzing everything around us and everything we do it turns out that almost everything outside our own body is beyond our control.  That is,  we cannot control global warming, whether or not we will be promoted, if we are going to win this tennis match or if our boss at work is in a good mood today or not.  The things we can control are only those that are internal.  by this I mean our reaction to things.  The way we chose to see the world.  This idea goes all the way back to the Stoics of ancient Greece, especially Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.  (I hope everyone gets a chance to read these things someday!) A more modern example is that of the famous psychologist Viktor Frankl who was imprisoned by the Nazis. Even though he lost his family and possessions he was able to survive by realizing that the only thing that nobody can take from you is the way you chose to feel or react to something. Thus,  we should choose not to be worried or afraid of things. It can be done!  Stop watching the news for a while is a good start….

Our biggest fear may well be related to death in some way. recently I read a fascinating article about an island culture/society where the people are measurably the happiest in the world.  The reason for this is that they talk about death all the time, thereby making it a complete normal and natural event that one can even celebrate.  It’s interesting that in Ireland death is kind of celebrated by drinking parties called ‘wakes.’

Anyway,  this blog is going to get too long because the topic is so huge so let’s wrap it up. The bottom line is that we should not, as Epictetus put it, ‘Suffer more in our imagination than in reality.’ Stop being scared or worried and go out and enjoy life. :)

-Happy- Halloween

Buri