6/24/2016

Free will – both our downfall and our tool for ascent

 

Everyone is on their own journey, and each of us is ultimately destined to reach blissful heights of love and communion with others, and to some unknown extent, with the Creator of all that is. We have what we need to evolve. Regardless of whether you believe in God, the choices we make are ours and are the key to growth or stagnation. We have free will to choose to learn new things consciously such as a new skill, new ways of communication with others, new ways to help others, or new things about ourselves. Some things we may already know well and sometimes they could use a little tweaking so that each one of us can become our best possible self. Using the tool of free will, we can make an inner reform of ourselves through self-reflection and awareness.

 

Using Free Will to Learn

 

Most of us are lazy when it comes to stretching our souls consciously. It is so much easier to stay in the familiar, even if it is destructive to ourselves or to others. “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” – for many people this saying is quite true. It is easy not to add learning a new skill to an old routine. It is easy not to help anyone in need and to look the other way. It is easy not to look inside ourselves or to try a new form of communication, especially when we already know how people will react to the way we speak to them. Even if their reactions are negative, we know what to expect, and sometimes even feed on that negativity, not knowing anything healthier. In order to change things for the better, free will needs to be employed to make different choices.

 

We tend to shut down when someone points out something about us that is challenging to deal with. Our egos dislike intensely a perception of being under attack. It is so much easier to sit on our self-given laurels, than to consider a criticism, and search it for truth. What a missed opportunity! If we were to use our free will to mull over the observations of others about ourselves we might find out if they were right and then have a more powerful knowledge for our INNER REFORM. We might have a better chance of deciding to find improved ways of being with our selves and others. In this way we might use our free will to make changes little by little, climbing that stairway to the heavens, or simply just becoming better people (for you non-believers).

 

A large portion of our purpose in being here on the planet is to learn by living with and interacting with others. We also might use our free will to REACH OUT TO OTHERS instead of staying stuck in a safe routine, turning our heads away from what we could do for them. There is so much merit in using our free will to do for others what we would wish others to do for us. Doing for others actually lessens the perception of our needs for ourselves and improves the quality of our lives. Goodwill practiced towards others is an example of free will well used…

 

Free Will Well Used

 

If we choose to sleep walk our way through life, not making good use of our free will and progressing very little, one day our actions will bring equal and opposite reactions upon us. Someday we may be given some excruciatingly painful lesson that appears to take away our free will to choose or plan our routines. This painful nudge comes to teach us to pay more attention to our journey. 

 

If we use our free will to make an inner reform of ourselves, we will be better equipped to handle the challenges that come upon us, often unexpectedly, and be able to make better choices more in line with the ascent to peace. At least we will be more in line with a peaceful and harmonious life.

 

Use your free will to be kind, be good to others, and to improve yourself. We are allowed our free will to be used in either direction, good or bad. Really though, your free will is a blessed gift that can be bent towards beauty, and a much more pleasant way to learn as we travel through this existence.