subject: Have You Figured Out What's Really Important in Your Life? - The Little Prince Series [print this page] Have You Figured Out What's Really Important in Your Life? - The Little Prince Series
Do you ever get really annoyed with people? It's a pretty human trait and the pilot in the story of the Little Prince isn't immune to it.
He's "busy" at the momenta state so many of us can relate to. So he doesn't care to be interrupted.
It's too bad, because the Little Prince wants to talk about something really importantsomething that has to do withfeeling, sparking compassion and caring.
In contrast the pilot is focused on apractical task. Now we all know that we have to be practicalthat practicality, especially matters of business, has to win out over the heart.
The pilot is trying in vain to unscrew a bolt that's stuck on the engine of his crashed airplane. This is of course something hehas to succeed at if he's ever to get his plane in the air again.
And besides, he's fast running out of drinking water, something that's a really big issue in the Sahara Desert, a thousand miles from any human habitation.
The Little Prince wants to know what use thorns are on flowers. Doesn't it just irritate the heck out of you when someone starts talking to you about inconsequential matters right when you arebusy? Can't they see you have important issues on your mind, important things to do?
The pilot doesn't know why flowers have thorns and right now he doesn't care. He is realizing that his plane's engine problem is extremely serious, to the point of being life-threatening.
The Little Prince persists, which is characteristic of him. He never asks a question and then just drops it because it's inconvenient. He stays with it because the only questions he asks concern matters of the heartand he knows that the heart is ultimately what life is all about.
The pilot is really upset about the refusal of the bolt to budge. He just can't handle questions about thorns on flowers right now.
To get the Little Prince off his back, he says the first thing that comes into his head: "The flowers are of no use at all. Flowers have thorns just for spite!"
Of course, spiteful is precisely what the pilot is feeling at this moment. He's lashing out because he's frustrated that he can'tcontrol the bolt. So he projects his unresolved emotional state onto the flowers.
I think of all the times in my life I've been irritated with someone because, at that particular moment, I didn't want to entertain what they were interested in talking about. (Maybe I didn't want to entertain it atany moment!)
As I ponder this irritation, I realize it's about control. We want to control others because we aredriven and they are interfering with our drivenness.
I become annoyed, irritated, whenever I already have a goal in mind, a set idea of how things should be, a particular agenda. Anything that deflects from this is therefore unwelcome.
At such a moment, I'm likely to project my unresolved internal state onto the other. It really has nothing to do with the other, only with my own emotional reactivitymy lack ofself-control.
The need to control others always reflects some aspect of our inability to master ourselves, contain our emotional reactivity.
But this isn't present moment awareness. It isn't a fluid way of living life. It's a rigid, mental way of life that smacks of the constriction of the boa constrictor.
This doesn't mean there aren't times when weare present and need to remain focused on something. But in such cases we have no emotional wash from the situation. We experience no emotional charge.
In such a case we pleasantly and gently ask the person to allow us to complete what we are doing before we engage them.
The issue then is attachment. We are only driven when we areattached to somethingemotionally. In contrast, when we feel something deeplyin the heart, our essential beingwe have no attachment. We are detached and therefore able to connect deeply.
So it is that the Little Prince introduces us to the boabab of what he labels "matters of consequence." We think something is so important, so earthshaking, and we become emotionally attached to it. Yet it's not what actuallymatters in life at all.
It's caring, being compassionate, connecting, reaching out in love that matter. Everything else is just the scaffolding to facilitate the emergence of these qualities that are the essence of our very being.
