What Does Taking Pride in Things Mean?

I write these words from a hotel room in upstate New York.

I stare at my carry on, clothes, laptop and phone. Tossing in money, that is every *thing* I own.

Owning only a few things revealed to me:

• things are as worthy or worthless as you make things
• things are bunches of molecules packed together, whether dense wood (house thing) steel (car thing), plastic or cloth
• taking pride in things creates the insane condition that bunches of molecules, including a bit of wood, steel, plastic or cloth somehow reflects your worth or value as an unlimited being

Appreciate things. But do not take pride in things because things are wood, cloth, steel, plastic and the like. Enjoy things but never let things add worth to your value as a human being

Things Come and Go

Things come and go. What happens after your mansion burns down? Devastation ensues because ego attached to the wood thing called a “mansion”, ego took great pride in this pile of wood and now that the mansion disappeared, ego craves for the dissolved attachment, feeling horrible because much of your worth as an unlimited being seemed to be tied to your pride of owning a large pile of wood, neatly designed.

I ain't the Buddha. Nor am I Christ. You realized this by now. But I understand why enlightened beings own nothing and certainly do not take pride in anything individuals may own or touch. Enlightened beings know pride takes ownership and humans genuinely own no-thing because at death, you take no-thing – or no-one – with you.

Does your body travel with you into the Great Beyond, at death? Nope. This means you do not own your body. Bodies are leased or borrowed for a human experience. Taking pride in something you appear to own is insanity because basing your worth on something you need to give up leads to suffering, misery and depression.

Observe human beings obsessed with stopping the aging process. Fools take great pride in their youthful looks which then disappear because the body eventually evolves from youthful-looking to mature looking. But appreciating your body – being grateful for it versus being prideful of your body – allows you to gracefully age, knowing how one day, you hand over the body to Mother Nature.

Grey Guy

I could dye my hair and get carded at a bar. I am 45 years old. Most people believe I am 15 years younger than I am. But I intentionally allow my grey hair to dominate my dome because doing so helps me dissolve pride, ego, vanity and the insanity of conceit. I appear to look young – even with the grey – but only because I genuinely could care less, being 100% committed to doing 4 hours of energy management a day.

I meditate, do Kriya yoga, do yin yoga and exercise for 1/6 of every day to circulate my energy, to feel good and to be able to serve you at my highest functioning levels. I could care less about how I look, pride, vanity, and owning things. My wardrobe consists of T-shirts, shorts and sweats.

Appreciation

I genuinely appreciate the few things I own. I deeply appreciated owning a BMW for about a decade, some 13 years ago. Beautiful car. But even then, I did not take pride in the thing because even though it looked good and performed like a champion, it was a car I knew I would eventually trade in or sell. I eventually sold it.

Taking pride in some-thing ties some – or all – of your worth in something you need to give up, sooner than later. You are an unlimited being, incapable of even being defined, let alone by a thing that's not really yours, anyway.

Appreciate things you own for one day, you won't own anything.

Have fun helping people. Be grateful for things in your possession. Be just as grateful when you need to release things to accept the illusory nature of ownership and to feel good about your next experience in this short, sweet human drama we experience.