The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #5 Understand your Dark Side
Are you fearful? Do you have anger management issues? Are you suffering?
These are insightful questions to identify your dark side. Some of us experience some level of dysfunction in our lives, enough to create and feed a dark side. I’m sure you’re not like Anakin Skywalker, the boy who grew up to become Darth Vader in Star Wars. But you have some darkness that’s causing you suffering.
To be successful in our career and life, we must understand our dark side, not indulge it or take pride in it. We should aspire to transcend it, so we can become happier people.
Understanding suffering allows you to understand anger
It’s easy to mock Yoda’s line,
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
But there are high-level Buddhist teachings that can be applied to the Star Wars saga.
In this saga, we learn the principles of suffering from Yoda’s teachings to Luke Skywalker. There are several forms of suffering. The first is ordinary suffering or pain. The second is associated with change. The third form of suffering can be described as frustration. The dark side represents another form of energy categorized as suffering. Our dark side manifests anger, fear, aggression, and hatred.
There are profound lessons to be learned in Star Wars. Through Yoda, we learn that “attachment to fear, anger, and hate is suffering; and fear, anger, and hate do not arise one from the other, but from confusion within our own mind.”
When we’re attached to the dark side, we suffer and those around us suffer as well.
Action Item: Become mindful
To overcome our dark side, we must recognize our suffering by being mindful of our daily life and being aware of suffering as it manifests. Recognition of our state of mind reduces our suffering, leading us to the second step of transformation-acceptance.
We have to accept the presence of frustration in our life or career before we can transform it. By accepting frustration, we look deeply into it, helping us achieve the third step: transformation.
You can investigate the frustration to understand the conditions and causes that have contributed to it. Unlike Anakin, we can save ourselves from regrettable actions by looking deeply.
You may not suffer from borderline personality disorder like Anakin Skywalker, who was descended into darkness by becoming Darth Vader. But you may have enough darkness, preventing you from a being successful, happy person in your life and career.
My advice? Be mindful or get some therapy to transcend your dark side. Liberate yourself from fear, doubt, and insecurity, so you don’t accidentally become a Sith lord.
Recommended Reading
- Escaping Tatooine & The Cause of Suffering
- The Dharma of Star Wars: Learning about the Dark Side Within
- Wisdom and Compassion: Luke Transcends Suffering
- The Eightfold Path, Transcending the Dark Side
- Shrinks Diagnose Darth Vader’s Inner Demons
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The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management series outlines my rules of personal and work success. After reflecting on my personal values, I made this list, realizing values are my rules of being or life management principles. Based on your experiences, I hope this list inspires you to identify your own rules. Here are the rules to my success that may help you over the course of your journey:
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: Overview of the Pyramid and Its Levels
Level 1: Rules for Our Fundamental Nature
- #1 Find your own spirituality and practice it.
- #2 Know what you want or the Universe (or God) won’t know what to send you: If you don’t know what you want, how can you get to where you want to be?
- #3 Fate or free will? Regardless of what you believe, we all have a purpose to being here. The tricky part is discovering what it is.
- #4 Don’t wait for your future to happen to you, you have to be vigilant in making your future happen.
- #5 Understand your dark side, but don’t give into it or indulge it.
- #6 Aspire to always help and teach others.
Level 2: Rules of Continuous Learning and Modeling
- #7 Watch or read media sources when you need inspiration. Reflect on why you like a certain movie or TV show, so you understand why it moves you.
- #8 Always be learning. Continue learning through books or any source that gives you new ideas on how to approach your work or feeds your passion.
- #9 Become self aware. If you aren’t, then how will you know you’re screwing up?
- #10 Accept responsibility and make peace with your decisions and the consequences of those decisions. They have created the person you are today. The trick is, do you like what you’ve created? If not, then how can you change?
- #11 Keep a lid on chaos. Never let situations or emotions get away from you. Be the calm in the eye of the storm as strength, reflecting confidence for the most vulnerable people in your life.
Level 3: Rules for the Actual Journey
- #12 Stay still and don’t move if you feel lost, so you can find yourself or let the opportunity find you.
- #13 Always be course correcting.
- #14 Surround yourself with trusted and loyal friends. Be prepared to deal with betrayal without ambivalence. But be prepare to forgive (if the person is sincere, I mean really sincere).
- #15 Learn to channel your inner extrovert, if you’re an introvert. Learn to channel your inner introvert, if you’re an extrovert.
Level 4: Rules of Adapting to Environment and Interacting with Others
- #16 Make peace with your weaknesses. We’re not perfect. Even your strengths will turn into weaknesses. The trick is knowing when your strength has become a weakness.
- #17 Master your emotions and body language. Use them strategically in life and work.
- #18 Mentor yourself via the Space Time Continuum. What would your future self tell your present self? How can you get back on track? What have you done well? What more can you do? What would you tell yourself as a child, teen, 20 or 30 something?
Level 5: Rules of Humility
- #19 Never take your success for granted. Always prepare for the worst case scenarios. Be prepared for two steps forward and one step back.
- #20 Be humble. Treat others well, don’t be arrogant, and don’t drink your own Kool-Aid.
Level 6: Rule of Being
- #21 Be compassionate.
Similar Posts:
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #10 Accept Responsibility for Your Decisions
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #3 Fate or free will?
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #7 Watch or read media sources when you need inspiration
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #9 Become Self Aware
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management
