Horses taught me many a lesson on the road to enlightenment.
There are 3 type of horses:
The first group is composed of lazy or low energy horse that would only move a little fast when the whip was used. Other than that they always had their head down grazing and the only time they were in any hurry was to get back to the stable.
The second group were good balanced horses whether fast or slow.
The third group were high spirited horses and did not like to behave or run slow - but excelled at fast riding.
It is relatively the same with people. There are the high capacity people and the low capacity people and all sorts in between.
Sometime we get mad and think humans or horses are machines and all are fungible commodities. Well, they are not. We each have different abilities and comfort capabilities and once we accept this we can release the expectation that people or horses should be perfect. Always remember expectations are pre-planned resentments.
I liked horses and used to ride em, but I could not ever hope to take care of them properly as they are very high maintenance and I am low capacity person. So I gave up horses and now ride dirt bikes, which I can maintain somewhat.
Yes, bikes are inanimate, cold things, but pretty low maintenance as compared to horses. I can drain a bike dry, put it in storage, gas it and fire it up a year or five years later. This is all my comfortable ability will allow.
So, I fall back on my old saying…it doesn’t matter what I like, all that matters is what my inner peace program comfortably allows.
We can see this comfort quotient with families. Some mothers can raise 12 kids without breathing hard. Another mom can’t raise 1 kid and even ends up killing the 1 kid. So, there are all abilities of moms just as with horses and dirt bikes.
It doesn’t mean one mom is a better person than the other, it just means the two moms have different comfortable abilities when it comes to rasing kids. The important thing is to find out were we fit into this range with whatever area of decision we are working with if we desire to be at peace.
I also learned about my comfortable capabilities one day while reading Walden.
“I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find
that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind
was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust.
How then could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the
open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has
broken ground.” ~ Thoreau
For myself, I found I could not keep a mantle dusted when it had 20 things on it, but was able to keep it dusted when it only had 3 things on it. I tell others, there is nothing wrong with not liking to dust, but there is something wrong with not liking to dust and having too many things to dust.
For inner peace, one should not beat oneself for not being able to live comfortably in every environment under the sun. If we had no limits we would not be humans…we would be gods. We all have limits, we all come under natural law and are bound by certain capabilities. And the successful person is one that accepts these limits and works to live comfortably within them and does not get confused by enslaving themselves to ‘others’ limits.
Take care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2