The Answers You Seek Are Often in the One Place You Refuse to Look
How to learn not to be your own jailer
When you have an epiphany, comprehension is instantaneous. There is no gradual build-up. You simply transform from a state of not knowing to a state of knowing. It can be a life-changing moment, unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to convey how it happens.
We’ve all had experiences of having epiphanies. One you might remember is the moment you learned how to ride a bike. There is no steady improvement. One moment you can’t ride a bike and the next moment you can. Understanding simply snaps into place.
It’s frustrating that this kind of knowledge is almost impossible to teach. You can’t put an epiphany into words. To really know what you’re trying to say, the person you are talking to has to experience the epiphany themselves.
A life well-lived
Sometimes we get a sense that there is something wrong with the way we think. This sense can manifest in depression, frustration, or a fear to act. We think that if our minds are not properly calibrated, anything we try to do is destined to fail.
One of the essential goals of life is to do no harm. We hold this goal dear to our hearts whether we are consciously aware of it or not. I know this because I recently caught myself celebrating the fact that I’ve reached 46 years of age without having to bear the burden of having caused a major catastrophe.
We all hurt people, and sometimes the way we hurt people is beyond our ability to repair. There’s no better feeling than making amends for a transgression that haunts you. Mistakes are inevitable, and the most important lesson in life is to learn how to forgive yourself.
A life-altering tragedy
Years ago I traveled to a beach in Venezuela. I was there with a friend of mine and we were spending a month partying. The whole country was on carnival, and we were having the time of our lives.
I remember walking through a beach parking lot and I noticed that a car started to move. The wheel was turned and the car was in the slow process of angling backwards.
A child was standing in front of the wheel. I still remember he was wearing goggles and a green swimsuit. The wheel was turned and the child was almost as tall as the wheel.
Who knows how that child got there? What kind of parents leaves their kid unattended in a parking lot? But that didn’t matter right then. All that mattered was the car was backing up and the child was about to get killed.
From my vantage point, I could tell that the driver couldn’t see the child. I could see the driver through the windshield, he was looking behind him with his arm on the passenger’s seat.
If he hit the gas, the kid would be dead.
I started to run.
I was there on vacation. A second earlier, I had not a care in the world. Now I was terrified. I was terrified for the child and for myself. I wasn’t sure that I had the strength to watch this child get killed.
I started screaming. I hoped that I could alert some people closer to the event as to what was transpiring, but the onlookers just regarded me as if I was crazy. I didn’t have time to convey the enormity of the situation. I was failing!
I wasn’t sure that I could forgive myself if I didn’t get there in time. I didn’t know what it would do to me to have to live with this vision of this child getting run over by this car.
I ran as fast as I could. I screamed as loud as I could. It was worthless. I couldn’t get there. I wasn’t going to make it.
But then the car stopped and the child was saved.
Divine intervention?
The driver had looked back and happened to see the child. He sat with his face in his hands for a moment. Imagine his guilt if he had run that child over? Imagine having to carry guilt like that with you for the rest of your life.
It is possible to release yourself from guilt, but it takes an epiphany. One moment you feel guilty, the next moment you are forgiven. Your life changes and there’s no way to understand it.
This does not diminish the seriousness of whatever is the source of your guilt. You just learn to live with it.
Overcoming crushing guilt
At 46, there are things in my life that I’ve done that I’m not proud of. I’m a person who tends to beat himself up over a mistake. I carry the burden for years. I carry burdens that other people would just laugh at.
It’s what makes me who I am. We’re all different that way.
I’ve had the experience of an epiphany that removes the crushing debilitation of guilt on two different occasions. I wish with every fiber of my being that I could explain the process.
But I can’t. It just happens.
What I do know
All I can say is this, on both occasions, the last thing I thought was that the secret to forgiving yourself is the exact opposite of what you’re convinced it is.
To put it another way, imagine you have a standing nail. Imagine you want to remove the nail. In the dimness of your perception, you know that you need a tool to accomplish this.
The only thing you have to go on is that you know with unequivocal certainty that the tool that won’t work is the hammer.
You think to yourself, “Well, at least I know not to try the hammer.”
So, methodically, you try every tool you own.
The screwdriver, the wrench, the skill saw, nothing.
When you’ve exhausted every tool in your tool shed, you start scouring the globe for more tools. You go to the North, you go to the Orient. Nothing that you try works. The only thing you have to go in is, “Well, at least I know it’s not the hammer.”
You learn advanced mathematics, you learn foreign languages, you age, you raise a family, you acquire a lifetime of experience. Through all of this, you’re constantly tormented by the standing nail.
“Not the hammer, not the hammer, not the hammer.”
Then, finally, after decades of torment, you reach a point where you realize nothing is left. You’ve tried everything in the world except the hammer. You pick it up, you swing, the head strikes…
…and you have an epiphany.
All this time the answer was the exact opposite of what you thought.
The hand that holds the key
When I was a young boy, I once spent an hour looking for my Luke Skywalker action figure only to discover I was holding it in my hand the whole time.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why, even knowing that we’re doing it to ourselves, do we keep on doing it?
I can’t explain the epiphany, but I can provide assurance that no matter how terrible you feel, relief can come instantaneously. Hold on! Hold out! No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve seen, it is possible to find a release from your self-inflicted prison.
You’re holding the key in your hand. You can be free the moment you allow yourself to see.
Thank you for reading.
If you want to read more of my writings, you may check out the following articles.
You can share your outstanding stories and inspire others. Just click the below image and be a writer for The Masterpiece.
