To live vicariously means living life through someone else’s experiences rather than being a part of the events yourself. It requires immersing yourself in someone else’s world and emotionally or mentally making their achievements and setbacks your own. It allows you to experience rewards without having to risk your own failures. If you want to see a great way to do this check out my blog on SecondLife. I have done this throughout my life to good effect! Here I will attempt to explain how it can work for you and not against you.
First of all one needs to get out in the world and create experiences to feed your soul. Sitting at home behind a monitor or TV is fun for a start, but that is all it is. It’s a means of inspiration! You see someone paragliding and say, I can do that! Or you see a character in a show plotting revenge on their enemy and you think, how silly! Love they neighbor as yourself (at least this is what I think). We can learn from the mistakes of others even if they are fictitious. With the advent of the internet and instant video along with endless educational clips there is no excuse not to try it yourself, whatever IT is!
The power of the imagination is a tool for living safely. Rather than engaging in risky behavior, use your imagination instead, knowing and remembering all along it is just make-believe. I just watched a show where the lead character has a psychotic break and his fantasy world of heroes and villains becomes all too real. He kills the “bad” people who he had dreamed up in his graphic art. Actual people who had harmed him and his GF. Another example of how fantasy can be taken too far, my brother got up on the roof of our house to get a Frisbee and when getting down he jumped thinking the judo classes he had been taking taught him how to fall safely. Sadly, he broke his arm.
While there is some truth to the saying, no risk, no reward. I will caution you to take all relevant preparations before doing anything radical. Where this saying falls short I believe is in professional sports and extreme sports. I have seen some fantastic movie documentaries of people scaling frozen cliffs, free diving to extreme depths, and climbing through miles of caves with no harm and much thrill! Even me as a viewer shared in the exhilaration associated with their exploits. So in this case living vicariously works to your advantage!
An example where it works against you is when you watch your associates excel in their jobs and you do the minimum to get by. Continually you get passed over for promotion while you are living vicariously through them! This behavior most likely is rooted in a fear to put yourself in the line of fire so to speak. There is risk in self improvement, at least from the ego’s limited view. What if I am not good enough? And the fear becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.
So to bring this all together, question your motives for doing or not doing things. I totally get it, there is risk involved in life. Yes, you can (appear) to die, ie. loose your body. Which means this lesson begins anew, in a “new” life. This is why when you succeed the effects are profound, even if you don’t feel it. I have pictures of me standing on a finger ledge with a drop off of ~1000ft. Though on the way back a rock I stepped on gave way and I fell several feet till I caught myself. It was fun till it was terrifying! Hearing that rock bounce down the canyon wall was creepy and yet exhilarating. I safely got back and would probably do it again with a bit more caution. Doing it gives me a real sense of satisfaction I would not otherwise have. Some good advice I like to follow is prepare for the worst, expect the best.
Sequoia Elisabeth
Oneness Ministry 