Sacking Your Inner Zealot

Discernment is the ability to shrewdly assess people or situations. It is one of the most significant human characteristics and a part of using our right of choice which ultimately defines us. This trait allows us to be in control of our future, helping us make correct judgments before making important decisions. This is vital to personal freedom. When you have lost or ignored the gift of discernment you have chosen to life your life flying by the seat of your pants, blind. Your life is out of your control. What is important to remember is that someone is always in control, in every situation. When you lose control someone else has gained it.

Passionate emotions about people or causes provide the easiest and most dangerous opportunities to ignore discernment. When we feel strongly about anything or anyone we are willing to be blind sighted, to ignore the warning and stop signs along the way. You are approaching the doorway marked 'Zealot'. Once you cross that threshold you will enter the kingdom of extremism, a place where danger lurks at every turn. You are navigating life willfully blind, refusing to see people or events as they truly exist. You will have perfected the ability to see the handwriting on the wall while refusing to read it. Your life will now be lived with decisions made through your emotional brain where you can create any reality you choose. You can no longer discern facts or separate them from a fantasy that supports what you choose to believe. Being a zealot is its own special kind of insanity. You are choosing not to see, hear or gather facts that do not support what you are passionate about. You are not unable, you are unwilling to see.

The danger is you have also relinquished the opportunity to be in control of your life, today or in the future. You are limited to friends and acquaintances who embrace thinking that cannot withstand scrutiny. Your cause now has control of your future. Expect those who are not afflicted to begin dispersing from your circle of friends; their own discernment has warned them not to continue along a path that rarely leads to happiness. You have entered a closed society where enlightenment is not welcome. You are being disloyal to the cause if you ask questions. Blind loyalty is necessary to remain in the land of zealots.

If you are already there you may find there is no easy way out. Expect anger and recriminations from those who are caught up in the cause. Typically you must leave completely to escape and regain control of your own life. If you sense that you are approaching this state of mind it is time to pull back. Anything that cannot withstand close and impartial examination is fraught with peril. You are in danger of handing over your freedom, your right to choose freely what you believe based on gathering real facts. Stop, look and go.