Stress and Exhaustion to sublime relaxation in 3 seconds flat

Somehow the most stressful and exhausting day in my recent months turned into the most relaxing day of deep understanding - as though trudging through the depths of hell I finally reached the pit to discover that heaven was at the bottom of things and was quickly jolted into nirvana. That is a basic summary of my day.

There is a point during mayhem that my mind does a 180 and quickly sees through all of the bullshit going on around me and rejects it, and throws it all aside as the useless garbage it is to focus on what is truly important. I've been struggling for quite a while now to find an inner peace, and perhaps I just needed a shock for my body to finally be willing to give up this reality in favor for a new one. My blue pill (or is it the red one, I always forget) was the stacking of a heavy argument with someone I deeply care about, a final point of lost hope at work, an utter lack of sleep and a hangover to boot. I have been lacking motivation through my various failures in personal development, but I always knew why.

I was pushing things unnaturally - an adult still trying to squeeze the triangle blocks through the circular holes. I forced so many goals and pressure down my own throat that I forgot the fundamentals (building blocks ^_^) : be calm and true to myself and be confident in what I do. Most of my goals can be reached only by attaining confidence, as we all know that those at the top of the food chain aren't always very true to themselves, let alone anyone, and are definitely not calm people; however I have realized that actually goals and achievement are not most important, even in personal development. What is the most important is what is inside, and if there is no inner peace or improvement, then all of the outer stuff is just fluff, covering the incomplete chunk of coal on the inside.

Something that caused this click today was a blog from a very straight forward person who calls herself "v" at www.violentacres.com - she wrote about a topic that has interested me the most in recent months after my first journey into the working class: financial freedom. Financial freedom does not mean having a lot of money, but rather having a lot of TIME. If you can live comfortably and choose when and how you want to work daily, then it does not matter how many zeros there are in your bank account. If your investments yield 50K / year and you are not a heavy spender, the most likely you can be happy for the rest of your life with all the freedom to do whatever you want. But if you work 60 hours a week for 500K / year, most likely you won't be a very happy camper and probably haven't even had the time to consider personal development, but rather only career development - except that this career eats your life rather than adds to it.

She mentioned that considering yourself "owned" by employers is unacceptable. This really caught me. I've had fear at work that I will do or say something that could upset my boss, but why should I fear anything at work? If your boss doesn't treat you like a human being but rather a tool to be used that can be scrapped at the first sign of defect, then perhaps this isn't the right place for a conscious human being to be.

I've thought about these things before, but somehow they crystallized into some sort of epiphany today and everything came together. Relaxation, calmness, inner peace, confidence, patience -while they are practiced traits, they are also results of a certain mindset: one that does not take things more seriously than they are. I've always loved the part in fight club when Edward Norton's dream penguin - his strength animal in his strength cave - squeaks "slide" . The first few times watching I didn't understand this, but I understood finally after about the 5Th time - power comes from letting things that don't matter "slide," or don't make them matter; kick them to the curb. The real power is in the mind, where angry bosses, consumer culture, or a spilled glass of milk simply slide into a vortex of nothingness and do not consume a part of your consciousness. When you keep these out of your head, you keep your power to think for yourself.
So like the guy in office space, I'm in a state of complete relaxation right now - let's just hope I don't snap out of it too soon. At least I got a taste and will be hungry for more.