Other Dimensions
As we all begin to turn the last few pages of chapter one in 2022, I feel as if it’s fair to say that whatever mindset we are leaving this first month in will be a foreshadow of the rest of the book.
As I’m sure many had, I began January hopeful since having a rough time throughout last fall and winter. The sense of New Year’s tends to bring about this feeling of hope, but once fizzled away, as does our ambition.
When I understood this, I promised myself that this year would be different, that I was going to be the change that I’ve searched for in everything but myself priorly. I was not going to allow the adrenalized feeling of hope slip from as the holiday passed again.
With all that I’ve learned in the first few weeks of the year, I’ve come to find a clearer vision of the person I want to embody. With this, though, I also had to understand the person I didn’t; the one who I embodied just days before the new year even started.
Out of all that I believed and embodied then, there is only one main trait that I absolutely wish to demolish and not continue on carrying with me as I explore 2022: Reacting/Responding to the world in a single dimension.
Thinking abstractly takes mental work, especially when our minds easily hand us a way of reacting/responding to partake in almost without any thought.
Not only so, but I’ve also come to understand the constant of the world that is demanding of the here and now. Modern society drools over the thought of obtaining anything at lightning speed. The faster we can react/respond to something, the faster we can get through the situation and be onto the next. It’s a never-ending cycle of rush where we never actually end up achieving something to be content of.
The art of slowing down has helped me greatly in all aspects recently, but it can be far difficult being surrounded by those who are opposing.
Even more so, reacting/responding to a situation in a slow manner is the most challenging when our emotions are involved. It’s almost as if our emotions have a mind of their own, or at least it oftentimes can feel as such.
There have been countless times that I’ve taken a menial mess within a situation and created something far more deranged simply by reacting/responding with my emotions.
This is not who I want to embody any longer.
My aspiration is leaving this trait of quick reaction/response to my past self.
To fully be one who can slow themselves down and understand the world in a multi-dimension sense, we must truly dig deep to understand what we stand for — what is worth a reaction/response.
We must dissolve beliefs that may be harmful or unhelpful and be open to various ways of understanding with an open mind.
We must be able to truly be accepting of others and be opened to challenging our perspective within every situation we encounter.
Slowing oneself down in this manner is deemed as an art to me because it requires being honest with oneself of where you may be wrong, which is an abstract task in itself.
