...black swan white swan

...there is an upsurge (which has been going on for sometime) in interest in eastern spiritual thought ...have the west got it wrong ..what is different abut the philosophy of the east that makes it interesting to the west. well, clearly in the west we have it wrong. obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, depression. we satiate ourselves on easily available food (food has become a reason to eat rather than a reason to maintain our bodies), alcohol (binge drinking and it's problems are evident), and read about, or perceive, how wonderful our friends lives are and wonder why ours aren't quite as good.

where's the problem? the problem is in our expectations. in any given situation the outcome can go in one of two directions - it can turn out well or it can turn out badly. we are socalised to assume that we have a right for our outcomes to be good. but we have no control over the outcome however much we try as so many other factors exist to conspire against us. take a day at work. we have no control over the traffic we drive through, we have no control over how our colleagues are feeling, we have no control over who is going to ring our phone or email us and we certainly have no control over what our boss asks us to do; yet we expect our days to go as we anticipate they will....

there needs to be an acceptance that we have limited control over what happens to us. what we do have control over is how we respond. if you accept at the start of the day things may not go as well as you think then you have prepared yourself for that possibility. there's nothing greater then the wake up call given by finding out that you're not as physically invincible as you think you. imagine finding out you have high blood pressure and that you have a 14% chance of having a stroke in the next ten years. if you never find out about your high blood pressure (and lots of people have no symptoms - that's why it's called the silent killer) then there is a statistically significant chance of waking up one morning and finding that, on that day, you have s stroke, even though the evidence is that on the previous thousands of days you didn't have a stroke.... you have no control. david hume tells us that we understand that all swans are white but it would only take the sighting of one black swan to turn this whole understanding of the world on it's head even if we have observed thousands of white swans.

we think that everything should go right for us because we live in a society where we create the illusion of control - we know we will eat tomorrow, we know we will have a roof, we know the shops will always have food in them, that the police and fire brigade will turn up if we need them, that the hospital will be open if something goes wrong. this all creates the illusion of stability so, when something goes wrong (however small, sometimes) we see it as a devastating blow and start to spiral downwards. what eastern philosophy does for me is develops in me an acceptance that whatever will be will be and that by accepting this lack of control i actual give back to my self more control. i am in charge of how i respond. 

"you are stronger than you think you are"