The Story of the Angry Old Man
- cazocompass
- Oct 6
- 2 min read
(see video below)
An old man lived in the village. He was one of the most unfortunate people in the world. The whole village was tired of him; he was always gloomy, he constantly complained and was always in a bad mood.
The longer he lived, the more vile he was becoming and the more poisonous were his words. People avoided him, because his misfortune became contagious. It was even unnatural and insulting to be happy next to him. He created the feeling of unhappiness in others.
But one day, when he turned eighty years old, an incredible thing happened. Instantly everyone started hearing the rumor:
“An Old Man is happy today, he doesn’t complain about anything, smiles, and even his face is freshened up.”
The whole village gathered together. The old man was asked, ‘what happened to you?’ to which he responded…’Nothing special. Eighty years I’ve been chasing happiness, and it was useless. And then I decided to live without happiness and just enjoy life. That’s why I’m happy now.’
Trusting in yourself can be a very challenging thing to do. An active brain complicates this by creating a sense of self doubt in us. We spin and spin, creating more and more of an issue which is in our imagination. This essentially infests our mind, causing a spiral downward, taking anything and everyone around us down. How do we stop it?!
Yep, mindfulness. For such a long time, I was caught up in this spiral myself. So many life stressors. This created a lot of anxiety for me. This anxiety literally made me ill. I was lucky enough to be introduced to mindfulness through meditation, and it changed my life. Where I was once occupied with what I had done wrong and lots of ups and downs in my mood, I found myself calm and enjoying my time. I guess you could say like the old man, I stopped chasing life and began living it.
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