Safety vs. choices
Friday, July 25th, 2008
Q: Masters, I have become absolutely paranoid lately. As a child I remember a time where life was carefree and we didn’t worry about anything. Then came the Tylenol deaths where someone put poison into containers of pain medication at drug stores and killed a number of people. Subsequent to that, adulteration of other foodstuffs has occurred at supermarkets resulting in safety precautions and double seals on everything. Every time I purchase something that could have been opened before I got it, I think it may be tampered with. What can I do about all my fears? Are they justified?
A: A number of things are at play in your scenario. The time of your childhood was before it became so easy to inject fear into people. Governments are very cautious trying to protect their citizens in these terrorists’ times. Stores and manufacturers are afraid of the average consumers who are quick to file lawsuits, sensing they can obtain money if a merchant wasn’t overly careful of how all the merchandise in their control was handled.
One of the main things that is suffering throughout all this precaution-crazy world is interference with the soul’s life lessons, particularly the exercise of freedom of choice. You may have set up a situation where you were to be affected by a tampered-with product, but lo and behold, your protagonist wasn’t able to set up the planned event because of all the precautions in place preventing access. You therefore are unable to make decisions about how to think and deal with the resulting infirmity.
Remember, you only draw to yourself what you need to experience, but if blockades are erected so that the test can’t come to you, you may find yourself not completing a lesson and coming back again. Some of the fear that you sense results from feeling you have no choices in life.
As with all of your thoughts you must watch what you fixate upon because it will bring the dreaded event to you one way or another. You don’t have to worry if you exercise reasonable precautions. Don’t take a drink offered to you by a stranger. Don’t use a product that has had the seal broken on the cap. Trust that the government regulations are protecting you. Don’t buy into the fear that the tamperers are seeking.
