Exploring vs Searching

Think back to when you where younger, and you had the opportunity to explore some new place or have a wild new experience. You decided where to go and how to get there.

Wasn’t it exciting? Wasn’t it an adventure? Most people find discovering new placed and seeing new things to be thrilling. This is the mental state of an explorer.

Then, something strange happens. You discover one of your belonging is missing. Maybe it was your keys or your wallet. Maybe it was just an idea or a frame of mind. At any rate, something personal to you is now lost. You search your pockets, then your memory, and then you start looking around.

You ask yourself: When did I last have it? What do I do next? You go back over the same terrain, retracing your steps. You look here, trying to remember. You look there, desperation bringing you to the edge of panic. Now you are in the mental state of a searcher.

Now you are lost. You are no longer on an adventure. The thrill and excitement are suppressed by anguish. There is a screen over your eyes that turns everything to disappointment. New opportunities and experiences present themselves, but since they are not what you are searching for, you ignore them.

Even if you find the item, the trauma of having lost it can persist. Either way, you now stop exploring and searching altogether and begin protecting. Most of your deliberate actions will now be motivated by a desire to guard, protect, or avoid something.

Beliefs can be lost too. You can lose awareness of what you believe. How? By becoming so familiar with protecting your ego that you forget the playfulness of exploring.

Losing awareness of your beliefs leads to stress and self-sabotage. Your feelings and actions are on autopilot. You are living passively, in a walking daze. In turn, you attract the circumstances that will fulfill these bad beliefs.

Do you carry beliefs that should be discarded so that you can regain the natural high of the explorer?