There are basically only two Paths in life: Reactive and Proactive.
The Consequential Life is primarily an Unconscious Path. Shit happens and you instinctualy respond. How you respond dictates where the Path leads you. This is Reactive.
The Intentional Life is a Conscious Path. Shit happens and you choose your response. Other times shit happens because of your choices. Your intention and the choices you make that arise from your intent guide you on the Path. You guessed it, Proactive.
Either method is a choice. We either choose to be aware or we choose to go through life with eyes and mind closed.
Most people live a reactionary life. Here’s a few examples of living a reactionary life while on an unconscious path:
- A goat shits on your path. Step in in, rub it in your face, sleep in it, don’t wash it off. “Good things come to those who suffer.”
- A goat shits on your path. Make a shit sandwich and eat it in silent gratitude. “What good things?”
- A goat shits on your path. Its a sign! A goat has been here. Hang around and pray for its return so it can be sacrificed. “Good things come to those who wait.”
- A goat shits on your path. Its a sign! The path is unclean because you have sinned. “Sinners don’t get good things…until they die.”
I’ve known many people who suffered to the end and gained nothing. Known people who turn their backs on the good things in their lives because they can’t believe they either deserve them or that they exist at all. And I’ve never met a person who didn’t feed themselves…. something.
Personally, however, I prefer a proactive/conscious way of living:
When a goat shits on your path I say gather it up, mix it with sand and straw, and make bricks to smooth the path. Or mold menagerie from it, bake them in the sun, and give them as gifts. Or use it in a floral arrangement. Or turn it into incense.
There must be a million great things to do with goat shit and none of them have anything to do with moral causality or a reckoning of the scales.
What it comes down to is this; if you can’t find a good use for it, simply walk around it.
In the end, its a goat doing what a goat does. It shits. And shit happens.
