bananas

if you put too much energy into creating a new identity for yourself as one who is waking up, spiritual, more aware, loving, compassionate… you’ll miss many opportunities to see things that, once acknowledged and understood, can free you from the suffering you currently experience.

if you merely choose a new label for yourself – no matter how "different" from your old labels – and hold on to it firmly as you’ve held on to previous self-definitions, you’ll be preventing yourself from seeing your situation in its entirety and in complete honesty.

you'll bend yourself and your life's circumstances around the label, pass everything through an interpretation machine to make sure your label remains intact.

what you’ll end up achieving is that you’ll continue, for a time, to believe in the label, which gives you a temporary sense of pleasure and self-worth. but this “success” comes at the expense of not having learned anything real about yourself.

you’ll have succeeded in continuing to pretend you’re something you’re not (no label will ever correctly encompass what you are and the many manifestations of your nature).

don't expect a label to give you truth; don’t waste too much energy trying to understand – and classify within your belief structure – the terms “enlightenment,” “nirvana,” or “happiness.”

don't expect the word banana to give you the nutritional benefits of a banana;

eat one.