The blue pill

You’ve seen the now-classic scene from the movie (and if you haven’t, then you should watch it at least twice before reading further), The Matrix — Morpheus offers Neo a choice of either seeing the truth for all its discomfort, or continuing to live in the constructed, unreal dream world of machines, where you are enslaved so much that you don’t even know it.

The fact is that many of us live life by taking the equivalent of the blue pill. We don’t want to see the truth, because the truth is not familiar. And, therefore, we continue to live a life that is not really free, except we don’t even know it. But we always know the truth in our hearts. We know the direction we should take. We know our potential. We may be too scared to break free, but deep down, we always know.

The truth is that every event in our life is a blue pill, a potential teaching. The more uncomfortable or troubled you are by the event, the bigger the lesson that life is trying to teach you. So when you face a difficulty, remember this — you are in the classroom of life. When you learn that lesson, the discomfort will stop. Be aware, though, that you may be tempted to ignore the teachings of life because of the discomfort involved.

You may do one of many things to prevent the full realisation of the issue. Some common ways in which people do this are — a) Completely ignoring the issue: “What, me worry?” b) Playing the victim: “What to do, I am like this only.” c) Becoming angry with someone else: “It’s all your/their/her/his fault!” d) Becoming angry with life: “Life is horrible, it’s so unfair! There’s no point in living!”

All of them are variants of the blue pill. Ignorance is not always bliss.

Instead, be bold and choose self-awareness. It takes practice, of course. It doesn’t happen as easily as Neo swallowing the red pill. But your awareness will keep growing until you are free of all your internal inhibitions, and the self-imposed external ones. And your freedom will reflect in increased energy, motivation and happiness.