I (don’t) care

The way to life is through death; this is the paradox of death and resurrection, the gift of surrender.

One key part of surrender is learning to not care what people think. When we no longer care, we are truly free to care. This does not mean we obtain a self-absorbed, cavalier attitude of not having regard for others. It means we stop allowing the opinions of other to paralyze us. This is not an easy, and my failure rate is high.

I often invest too much energy focusing on what people think. While I may not be as self-conscious as I one was, my ego still has a foothold. My ego’s leash has grown longer through experience and effort, but it’s still there, holding the leash, waiting to pull me back.

The Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don’t wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity neglect the other.”

I agree with the essence of his words. When we invest energy on gaining external things, we naturally will neglect our internal essence, our True Self.

The more I consider the life of Jesus, the more I admire his freedom. He didn’t care what other people thought and this freed him to care even more for other people. It freed him to stand up to the authorities, but with love rather than violence. It freed him to show and speak life to those who were the most ignored or marginalized, even when he was mocked and judged. It freed him to be true to his True Self, the divine nature dwelling within him. There was an immense freedom displayed throughout his life; Jesus was free to be true to himself and the world.

Obviously, there are many differences between Jesus’s life and ours, lives marked by brokenness and shortcomings. But our past is just that, the past. All we can do is change this moment, seek freedom in this moment. While scary and painful at times, we must focus on today. Not the past. Not the future. Today, this moment. We must die to our ego so we can truly live.