The NEED TO KNOW

I am not sure if this is in line with the theme of this blog, but ....

I have been thinking about "the need to know". So many of my friends have this need. I have it as well, but I am beginning to understand and appreciate the serenity that comes with letting go of this need.

There is a belief that if one knows everything about a situation or event or idea, he or she could in some way change or influence the outcome. I believe this is a false sense of control .... at least this has been my experience. I have had a situation in life where I have made it a priority to know everything I could find with regards to a certain problem. This problem manifested itself in me. I felt the problem first, and then it revealed itself in external behavior and consequences. So, my decision was to be intelligent about it so that I could make an informed decision to change the problematic behavior. It did not work. All the knowledge I had did not change the outcome. The problem continued despite my best informed efforts to change it. The problematic feelings continued despite my best informed efforts to squash these feelings and thoughts.

It was only when I gave up .... or surrendered if you will ... that the change began to happen. I gave up on needing to know everything and understood that I already knew everything I needed to know: I knew I had a problem that thought could not fix. I had to give up and accept the problem as it was and then the change happened. Why did this approach work? I really have no idea. I do know it did.

So I decided to try this method on other problems in my life ... it is working. You see, my brain is the source of my problems, not other people or outside-the-body sources. It is always something in me (reactions, fear, etc.) that creates the problem for me. The brain that creates the problem cannot be the brain that fixes the problem A different brain has to do this. How does one get a "new" brain? I have found that when I stop feeding my brain with its own thoughts, new thought enters and begins to solve the problem. New thought comes from elsewhere ... from a place I cannot describe nor see ... I just know it is there.