Human Natural Gift

We were all born with a natural gift -- freedom from anxiety and fear, expectation and regret, ambition and disappointment. However, as we grow older, we knowingly or unknowingly abuse or misuse that natural gift.

This is how.

We begin to develop our sensations and become affected by them. We all have our five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting; they then become our perceptions and sensations that are stored as memories in our subconscious minds. Over the long haul, these accumulative experiences form our beliefs and personalities, and make us who we are. In other words, these memories become our bondage and we no longer have that innate freedom.

It is difficult to regain that natural gift once we have relinquished it. To illustrate, if we experienced something unpleasant in the past, we might have anxiety and fear that it would happen again. On the other hand, if we experience something pleasant, we would expect it to happen again; our expectations begin to precondition our minds to do certain things that we think will enable us to fulfill that expectations; by doing so, we pick and choose; any wrong choice or decision may lead to regret. By the same token, disappointment may be the consequence of ambition. 

How do we regain that natural gift?

Understand the natural cycle of things. Everything follows a natural cycle: what goes up must come down; the cycle is like the four seasons, or day and night. We, as humans, naively believe that we can change the natural order of things, deluding ourselves into thinking that we can make things happen the way we want them. Not following the natural order stems from the human ego. Accepting things as they are is the pathway to true human wisdom  It is by no means a passive outlook of life: we do what we can, and no more, and with no expectation and no judgment, 

“Good fortune and misfortune are all in one.

Seeking one and rejecting the other,
we become completely confused.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 58)

“There is no gain without loss.

There is no abundance without lack.
We do not know how and when
one gives way to the other.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42)

Stephen Lau

Copyright© Stephen Lau