Being terrorized is a choice, a choice that in today’s world we all have everyday.

Personally I enjoy the drama of terrorism.  I see and hear what other people see and hear but I CHOOSE to react to it differently; I choose to react to it in a way that works for me, that is positive and healthy and that fulfills my life.

I make these choices because I realize that I would prefer to experience positive and healthy emotions over negative and unhealthy emotions.  I realize that no matter what life offers I am still going to be here until I am not, so why not enjoy it?  I realize I do not want to give my power away to the terrorist, my power to experience appreciation, enjoy and love.

I don’t understand why people want to empower the terrorist.  I suspect that they don’t but that they react to the terrorist’s act with terror because they don’t realize they have a choice, they don’t realize that by reacting with terror they are doing EXACTLY what the terrorist want.

I can see that there are elements of our society that WANT us to be terrorized by the acts of terrorist so they encourage our being terrorized.  I can see that the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about would want us to fear terrorism so that we will be willing to pay more taxes to support large military expenditures.

I can see how religious institutions would want us to be afraid for that tends to motivate people to go to church to find solace for the pain of our fears.  That is there business model.

Terrorism works for these aspects of our society; basically terrorism is good for their business.

It appears that those in society who are least awake and aware of this, the right AND left wing conservatives, are the ones who are most willing to be terrorized and thus support terrorism and the businesses or organizations that profit from it.

I see and hear news stories about terrorism just like everyone else.  I suspect that I do not fixate on those stories as much as those who live in lots of fear. I find those stories interesting but not threatening.  Maybe this is because I don’t value this carcass as much as other people value the carcass they are experiencing life through.  I do value the experience of life that comes through this carcass, but if I value that experience then why would I want to fill that life experience with things like fear or other forms of negativity?

Long ago before I woke up and realized these things, I was in a habit of reacting to life in a very negative way, with such negativity that I really did not want to continue living if that is all that life was about. I realized at some point that this reaction to life with negativity was a product of caring TOO MUCH about life including myself. When I got so depressed that I finally just gave up and stop caring, fully stopped caring, I realized that the QUALITY of life dramatically improved.  Much later I realized that I could care for a while until it hurt too much and then stop caring for a while and rest in that place of detachment until I was ready to go back to enjoying the caring again.

I suppose that this transformation came after I realized that nothing that happens here on Earth is going to matter in the long run, that sooner or later all life on this tiny speck of dust in the universe that we call Earth will disappear with no trace that it ever existed.  I realized just how meaningless life was in the long run.  But I also realized that in the short run I WANTED to enjoy the experience of life and that in order to enjoy that experience I had to CHOOSE joy as a reaction to what life was offering.

One of my favorite quotes from the Buddha is, “There is no path to happiness; happiness is the path.”

It all comes down to practicing the emotions that I want to fill my life with.

People who are being terrorized by the terrorists are practicing the emotion of terror, and that is what they are filling their life experience with.

That is very sad for me.

I realize that the reason I no longer make that kind of choice is that some place along the way someone probably said to me that I have a choice on how I react to what life is offering.  And they probably did not just say that to me but they demonstrated that they did not choose to fill their life with negative emotions.  I suspect that for some reason I was able to hear and see them and the message they were sharing.  I don’t know why I was open to hearing and seeing them, maybe because I was so desperate at the time.  Maybe I was open to them because I was in crisis and open to ANY solution to that crisis.  I wonder if it was not just crisis that opened me up but that I had a belief or attitude that if I just knew of WHAT to do to change my world, and I worked toward doing that WHAT, then sooner or later I could change my world.  I realize that my conviction of the fact that I could change myself if I worked at it came because I HAD changed myself in the past.

In high school I was a card carrying coward, pretty much afraid of my own shadow.  It was through my military experience and Ranger School that I started to gain confidence in myself and my ability to handle what life was offering.  It was the training, the practice of thinking and doing things differently that helped me change who I was.  Maybe it was this experience or memory that gave me the conviction that I could again change myself and my habitual reactions to what life was offering.

So when someone told me that it came time to change my emotional reactions to what life offered, I was open to that message.  I COULD fill my life with positive emotions IF I was just disciplined and practiced reacting to what life offered with positive emotions.

Of course it was not easy in the beginning but I persisted until now my habit is one of moving back to appreciation, joy and love no matter what life offers.

Which is why terrorists have no power over me, they cannot create terror within me nor even fear of what they might do in the future.  Yes, they can and might kill me, but I was going to die sooner or later anyway so why worry about it.  What I don’t want is to fill my life with worry about death or dying or even injury.  I just don’t want to fill my life with worry.

I want to fill my life with beauty, appreciation, joy, love and gratitude, not terror.