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Princeton defines Introspection as:  the contemplation of your own thoughts and desires and conduct.

I’m not sure how much I like that, but I suppose that doesn’t really matter as not believing in the truth makes it no less correct.  Either way, I would have a slightly different definition that would flow something like this:

Introspection is the constant questioning of ones current actions & thoughts as well as past actions & thoughts  with the end result of having a more clear understanding of ones own actions and why/how thoughts manifest certain outcomes.

Not to mention, we can never move forward until we understand our past.  Anyone who tells you different, questions their motives; and their past.

Back to the point!  Introspection, the action of looking inward for answers.

This started for me probably about 3 1/2 – 4 years ago.  right after i went to jail, for the 2nd time.  I suppose right about now your thinking ‘Well, Mr. Smarty-pants, all that introspection couldn’t keep your a$$ outta jail, could it!?’.  To which I would reply ‘You are correct’.  However, through introspection I now know that I had to go to jail.  I had to find out where I was going to end up should I continue to make choices that were not beneficial to me, choices that were wrong.  This is often called the ‘Hard Way’ by our parents.  ’Boy, why do you have to learn things the Hard Way!?’ I can hear the echos of lectures past as I type…haha.  It’s funny though, I look around me, to people with whom I have shared my experiences and thoughts on them and I notice more and more that these people tend to make the exact same mistakes I made.  It hit me, we ALL need to learn things that hard way.  At least at first.  Now, stay with me here I’ll explain what I’m trying to say.

When we learn something ‘the hard way’ we experience the entire ‘thing’ from start to end and the consequences (good or bad) that come along with it.  We are imprinted with the memory of it.  This stays with us; provided we are one of the lucky ones who Remember our actions and consequences.  We have to experience the Truth for ourselves, be it good or bad, for if we do not we will always wonder.

We can use cigarette’s as an example.  Now, the information on cigarette smoking abounds.  We know it is bad for your health; while rolling your OWN cigarette’s being significantly more healthy FYI.  Oh and least to mention that in China they chain smoke, we all know what that is right?  Well, their incidence of lung cancer is a fraction of ours.  Why?  The food they eat is actually Food, as compared to HFCS, MSG, Aspartame ….ect. that we Westerners eat.  I digress, we all know cigarette’s are bad for us.  Yet the amount of young people who choose to smoke cigarettes is rising.  Rapidly.  Is it because it’s cool?  Or is it because Mom and/or Dad smoked?  Did they quit?  Did they instill virtues in their own children about the side effects and drawbacks of smoking?  Who knows.  What I know is my mother was a cigarette smoker.  When I was a child I can remember going into the kitchen after bedtime, lights dim as I walked into a hazy cloud of smoke and  see my mother smoking her cigarette’s reading her ‘Nosey Magazines’ (Enquirer et al).   Then my next memory and I flash to the basement, years later in the same house.  My mother is quitting.  She is eating Popsicle’s like that are TicTacs!  They were her crutch; much of cigarette smoking is just the oral fixation.  I remember how difficult it was for her to quit.  Have I failed to mention my mother has severe asthma?  I highly doubt the cig’s helped with that.  Now, at the age of 20-21 what was I doing?  Aside from working trick shifts (perhaps yet another post) I was smoking cigarettes.  Two to three packs a week!  What did I learn from my mother?  Apparently nothing.  I quit after about 2 years of smoking as the costs continued to rise (they were roughly 7$ a pack; now 10$+ a pack here in NY) and atop all of that I no longer received the Nicotine high I once got.  I asked myself, ‘Why am I doing this?  I no longer get high, I hate the way they smell on other people and now on top of that they are costing me a fortune!’  Needless to say, within 2 months I had smoked my last.  Well, that got a little more involved that I thought it would.  I hope I still made my point, I could have taken the Easy way out and listened to my mother and stayed away from cigarette’s; what fun would that have been?  More importantly, what lessons would I have learned?

When someone is trying to tell you ‘beware of this’ or ‘watch out for that’ we all think ‘oh please, just because you succumbed to the strain doesn’t mean I will.’  We do not believe we are all One.  As the late and great Bill Hicks said “Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration – that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There’s no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we’re the imagination of ourselves.”  I won’t get into the life as per Bill Hick’s in this post (perhaps a later date I will).  Yet, perhaps part of doing things the hard way may be that we lack the tactile feedback we get from exploring life.  We can get our hands dirty, so to speak.

You see, through introspection I have gained such an insight into my life and in doing so, Life as a whole.  At least this is what I feel.  I certainly have no Degree or otherwise stating that I’ve reached Level 13, Stage 3!  Side Note:  you may check out my other post on Life here.  Also, I will be making an update to that in the months that follow so, please check on back.

How do we start this process, how do we ask ourselves questions?  Well, the first thing to realize is that you have to be BRUTALLY honest with yourself.  Chances are you are hiding something from yourself that you don’t like; chances are you are hiding Numerous things from yourself.  Perhaps your family doesn’t approve, perhaps ‘society’ doesn’t approve.  May be you did something terrible that you have blocked yourself from remembering.  I know I’m guilty of this, most likely a few times over.  I have very few memories of times past, worse times as it were.  Times when I was Getting my Hands Dirty.   I did many things I was not proud of and am still not.  However, I have come to a point in my life where I realize all we can do is to learn from these mistakes; theses glitches of our Perfect self.  We must realize that we are Not perfect.  That we do make mistakes.  We must learn from them and allow them to propel ourselves forward, and not allow them to hold us back.

Never lie to yourself.  This is the first step, it may even be the only step.  If you lie to yourself you perpetuate the circle.  In doing this, you will never be free.  Free from what?  Yourself.

Once you can tell yourself that you were Wrong, that you’ve made mistakes, you can then go about and ponder on why the wrong choices were made.  Were you influenced and not strong enough to resist?  Did you just want to see what happened?  Did you not even think of the consequences before doing the act?  (Boy howdy am I guilty of this one, many times over)

Question.  Understand and Then learn.  Do not try to learn from the mistake before you understand why the mistake was made.

Life is such a wonderful thing.  Have you ever found yourself  saying ‘wow, I love life’ or ‘I am so lucky to be living this life.’?  We all have this power.  The power to see positive in everything and Ignore the negative.  This is not easy, but it is worth it 1000 times over and is a life long quest.

“Nothing worth doing in life is easy.  And it’s all worth doing.”

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