Spiritual practice is wonderful for a lot of reasons.

It can help us cultivate states of ease in life that are unconditionally available,

reduced stress, and also amongst other attributes, spiritual practice allows us occasionally to have what could be called

epiphanies or insights into ourselves, we can learn all kinds of,

become aware of all kinds of tendencies,

perhaps self-destructive behaviors.

We might become aware of things that we care about that really don't matter at all.

Sometimes life will provide those insights. After, for example, a relationship breakup or a loss, we might become aware of how impermanent life is and then we might become aware of why the

fuck do I give a shit about so much of a shit that I give a fuck about.

And yet, the question is that...

And yet, the question is, is that why, after we have these insights, do we still get a fuck about the shit that we know doesn't matter? Why do we get activated worrying about, for instance, I remember many, many, many, many

years ago, which is many to me. I was talking with a spiritual teacher and they said,

you know, if you and other people didn't worry about what other people thought,

so much of your suffering would immediately vanish from your life.

And I realized this was inherently true and yet it took years and years and years and years and years to weed out that habitual worrying part of my brain that would check on other people and see

you know how they were regarding me trying to figure out what they thought about me. It took a long time to really make significant inroads in that.

Even though I knew as clear as day

that trying to please people are trying to be liked universally or whatever is a complete source of suffering and a waste of time.

So many of my heroes are people that

went against the grain, went against the grain,

the stream, and brought something wonderful to the world

weren't particularly cherished in their time.

...