Bending Spoons

Spoon Boy : Do not try and bend the spoon...that's impossible. _Instead_ only try to realize the truth...
Neo : What truth?
Spoon Boy : There is no spoon.
Neo : There is no spoon?
Spoon Boy : Then you will see, it is not the _spoon_ that bends, it is only yourself.

OK, yes, I know. Glib movie quotes are a pretty cheap way of trying to develop a personal philosophy (and Animal House is a much more fun philosophy to embrace than The Matrix). Yet, the above has a real practical point I want to address. Spoon Boy's wisdom is undeniable. Let me break it down for you...

Spoon Boy : Do not try and bend the spoon...that's impossible. _Instead_ only try to realize the truth...

How many times in our daily lives do we try to do the impossible? We believe that reality does not effect us, and that we can somehow make the impossible possible through force of will. This type of thnking wastes a lot of time and effort simply by virtue of the fact that it is a manifestation of our inflexible mind. We stop trying to realize the truth and start trying to impose our hopes and dreams on it. This can never be successful, and is the reason why we can not bend spoons. The principal focus of our training should be to discover the truth about ourselves.

Spoon Boy : There is no spoon.

So much has been written about this that I do not need to rewrite it all here. Suffice to say that we all spend a lot of time worrying about problems that never happen. Our lives can be as simple as we allow them to be. To achieve this, we must first learn to LET GO of the unimportant. Once we let go of something, to us it ceases to exist and can be ignored/forgotten.

There is no spoon. Let go of the things you cannot control or influence.

Spoon Boy : Then you will see, it is not the _spoon_ that bends, it is only yourself.

Even an ocean of tears cannot wash away the truth of life. We cannot change most of what we see every day. Does this make us victims of our own flawed destinies? Does it condemn us to a miserable existince of being pushed from one uncontrollable event to another? Maybe. Instead, though, maybe it encourages developing an awareness of the fact that what is important is not the events that happen, but only our reaction to them. This is a central determinant of our quality of life. You must bend. If you do not, you break. The breaking, not the bending, is what causes frustration and disappointment.

Thanks, Spoon Boy