Smelling Salts!

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The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all that it contains. -Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), military and political leader of France who dominated continental Europe through a series of military victories.

There was a time when I was a young, aspiring businessman and had the opportunity to shadow some supposed experienced mentors during company visits.  In particular, I used to cringe as I watched and listened to one of my associates during business meetings.

The intent of these visits was to interest the subject entrepreneur in considering our services. In one meeting, within minutes, I realized that my mentor was not hearing anything the other guy was saying, not understanding at all what was important to him. Instead my guy was on a rant all about himself and our company.

The thought screaming in my head was “make a connection with this guy!”, “listen to what he’s saying first and then respond!”  At times I tried to interject in a supportive way without overstepping my bounds and embarrassing the associate, yet ultimately, it was clear not only to me but also to the entrepreneur that this guy was definitely not conscious of what was happening.

How does that happen?  How does a relatively smart business guy, who did have a successful track record, simply miss the boat? If this had been a softball game, the associate would have struck out swinging at pitches a novice should have hit.

From a comical viewpoint, I recalled a great scene in the movie CaddyShack when Karl, the whimsical greens keeper, played by comedian Bill Murray, recalls a supposed round of golf where he caddies for the Dalai Lama. Upon finishing the round, Karl asks the Lama for a tip, to which the Lama replies, “Oh there’ll be no money, but on your deathbed you will receive total consciousness,” to which Karl comments, “So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”

These days there are books-a-plenty about consciousness and becoming more aware, but ironically, the majority stills seems to be in a coma about the subject.  Why?  The explanation is perhaps found in the fact that facing reality can often be painful and therefore we might be simply displaying conscious unconsciousness!

Before you get lost, consider the plight of the alcoholic or the drug addict. Why would they go to such extremes?  Why punish themselves into physical oblivion?  Or even worse, why, when confronted, would the majority of the afflicted act oblivious and react like the interventionists were insane for even suggesting something so erroneous?

The answer is inherent in the unconscious state.  Certainly, we all would agree that chemical remedies, illegal or prescription, are the weapon of choice for many to numb the thoughts that well up in all of us and require us to look into the face of challenge, despair or simply self -analysis.  Why do that when it’s so much easier to come home and pop a pill or have a drink and within minutes feel the stress lifted?

I’m sure at times Victor Frankl, digging a trench all day with the equivalent of a spoon, in freezing weather, dressed in pajamas, fearing execution on the spot for the slightest mistake, would have loved to have gone back to his holocaust prison bunk house and downed a bottle of vodka.  Yet instead, he found meaning in the struggle.  He dug deep into his soul and became acutely aware of all that he was experiencing.  He could have easily slipped into a denial state, a virtual escape from reality, an unconscious, living dead…but he didn’t!

From the ranks of the Neuro- Linguistic Programming crowd, we hear the cries to “change your state”, “disrupt your patterns”.  They should be applauded for blasting the horn in the collective ear of the zombie state!  Think about it. Are you able to account for where you have been this past week?  Whom you were with?  What they even said?  How you felt?  Or did you just “go through the motions”?

When somebody asks you “how’s it going?”, do you reply, “same old same old” or “same stuff, different day?” STOP! WAKE UP!  What are you thinking, or are you still thinking at all?  Has it really become so bad that you have completely stopped thinking, listening, feeling, and living?  Have you really reduced yourself to a robot?

It’s certainly understandable with the elevated stress level inherent in this chaotic Information Age that we all feel a bit overwhelmed, but does that justify checking out completely?  Is it right to live unconsciously? Of course not! Quite the opposite, it’s actually a cop out!  When did it become the in-thing to become a quitter?

Maybe it’s that as we evolve, we have become so overly sensitive that we fear being aggressive, which has resulted in lost interest.  However, beware because there are those that welcome your oblivion.  In your mindless state, they are all around you.  Fleecing you of your time, your effort, your money and your freedom.

Why do they get away with it?  Because you refuse to wake up!  You never really question your investment advisor, your government official, your teacher or the myriad others that would seek to separate you from your hard earned wealth.  Shakespeare said, “a fool and his money are quickly departed”, perhaps it should be added that the velocity with which this happens is in direct proportion to the fool’s self -imposed oblivion!

The first step to ending this tragedy is to take a personal inventory.  You must pursue a conscious effort to not only be more aware of the external world, but more importantly, your internal world. Don’t accept the” same old same old.”  Ask yourself questions like “what am I feeling, doing and thinking when things are going my way or not going my way?”  What am I really feeling when I’m with somebody?”  “Would I rather be somewhere else?”  ”Am I patronizing the world at the sacrifice of my true feelings.”

The worst part of this is that you might feel like you are beyond recovery, that like Karl, consciousness will arrive only at your deathbed.  Well consider this, when an athlete gets knocked into next week, the trainer simply walks over, cracks open a tube of smelling salts and snaps the athlete back into consciousness.  So here’s your dose…now get back in the game and keep your head up!