The second arrow

I’ve been thinking a lot these days about the Buddhist teaching about the second arrow. In life, you can’t hide from the first arrow - bad things happen. But what you can avoid is the second arrow. Your reaction to the bad thing doesn’t have to make the bad thing worse, it can just be a thing that is happening. This is the kind of equanimity I would love to have in my life when I grow up. It also ties in to one of my Very Important Learnings of the last few years, which is that it doesn’t have to have a story. To my mind, all of the above is just different ways of saying the same thing - that our thinking brain is at cause for prolonging and/or worsening so much unnecessary suffering. I think it was in an episode of Mel Robbins with Dr. Russell Kennedy that he pointed out that your thinking brain is not going to be able to dig you out of your anxiety pit, seeing as how your thinking brain is also what is putting you there in the first place. That’s some holy shit stuff right there.

I also want to think that there is a second arrow of joy. I believe it’s called basking, and that’s what I want way more of. Stupid laughter and basking. I think the joy arrow would be made of silly string, or maybe it could be a Theragun for those who are so inclined. I honestly don’t care how it shows up, I just know that I need to somehow manifest way more joy arrows in my life.