On doing the right thing

I want to share a secret with you.

Sometimes I ask myself, “What does it mean to be right’? To do what is the “proper” thing to do. Do you? I mean, do you ask yourself the same question? And if/when you do, where does your answer come from? Your heart? Your brain? A little of both? A lot of both? Tell me, I want to know.

The yogis teach us to share the truth, to speak it from a place of love even if it hurts – you or the person hearing it – but is it the right thing to do? Is making the “right” decision supposed to make you feel “good” to make you feel like you are in the correct space, the one that is expected of you? But by whom? Yourself? YourSelf with capital S? Your parents, your children, your siblings, social media, your significant other, society? Who?

Do you know the answer to these questions?

Do you find yourself lost at times in the land of repeating the same scenarios over and over in your head, so that you can act righteously?

Do you wake up in the middle of the night trying to figure it all out? Are you unable to eat, your stomach bloated, eager to discern the right path from the wrong one? I ask, because I do.

I tell you what I have discovered: the answers are not in head, this is for sure. Once you quiet the mind (meditation, anyone?), when you connect to that deeper part of you that is not coming from worry, fear, guilt, what society tells you, what others expect of you, then and only then your dilemma is solved.

What is the right thing to do? Ask. Ask again, but not that part of you that loves the drama (pain body, are you listening?) the one that wants you to stay trapped in the box of your own thoughts. Ask. Ask that bigger part of you, the one that shines in you and me, in your neighbor, your coworker, the person next to you on the metro, or at the grocery store, and everyone you meet on your path. Ask. Ask again. Then listen.

And do the right thing.

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