Change and Perspective

  I find it interesting how the things one most attaches to are the things that often don't have so much significance overall. An example is getting worried about something that happened at work. Although it's certainly healthy to reflect on mistakes that have arisen in one's work or unexpected challenges and difficulties, it is perhaps not so healthy to then conclude that one is 'unemployable', or make some other generalization. But this is what I often do--rather than seeing the situation for what it is, I will get stuck on the individual details and lose the meaning of the totality. It sometimes takes a persistent determination to stay on the moment to know that these individual moments are not so significant as they appear.
   As I come to think about it, it's not possible to say that one thing directly causes something else. Usually,there is a cascading effect of causes that make one direction seem most likely to happen, if not inevitable. This is because nothing ever really exists in isolation. If I think, on the other hand, that one thing I do or say automatically qualifies something to happen, then I immediately assume that everything I do and say has this extreme significance, rather than thinking that causes and conditions have to work together to create a single result. I then become overly anxious, and the result is what appears to be self-fulfilling prophecy. If, on the other hand, I am able to maintain a healthier perspective on causes and conditions, I know that one thing does not directly or solely cause something else, so it makes no sense for me to attach to only one factor or situation as determining everything else. This attachment can lead to all sorts of perfectionist, anxious tendencies which only make me more tense and worried.