What would you give up to gain a super power?

Let’s face it, we live in a world where we put a premium on instant gratification. In fact, most organizations market directly to this weakness to great profit. For example, a beer commercial showing beautiful people connecting over the proffered beer is implicitly offering great hookups if we drink their beer. Most mainstream organized religions offer a simple ritual as a panacea for spiritual salvation after death. And the vast majority of us take the bait because we want a simple solution to our problems. When we go to a doctor we want a pill, a shot or a simple procedure to cure our affliction. We do not want a new diet, exercise regimen or lifestyle change. Those require work.

However, my experience on this Earth is that there are no simple answers to hard questions. We can fool ourselves into thinking that eliminating a symptom is the same as curing ourselves of a disease or an addiction. We can pretend that because we are baptized or we went to communion or we confessed our sins that killing our neighbor is OK or forgivable. But deep down we know that we are lying to ourselves.

I grew up reading comics, mythology and science fiction. This is where I encountered “Super Powers”. These are those abilities that more evolved Beings possess or ordinary people who were exposed to strange energy emanations. We live in a competitive world so the idea of having a super power is very appealing as most would give us an edge over our competition.

But so far I have not met any of these humans (or other beings) with super powers who gained them by accident. I know people who can lift up a car; they trained really hard for many years. I know a dowser who is paid very well to find water source for bottling companies when their geologists fail; he has dedicated himself to opening his consciousness to new energy wavelengths since he was 12. The point is that these abilities were acquired through hard work and sacrifice.

So my question to you fellow Steemlandians is not “What super power would you like to have?”, but what would you give up or sacrifice to gain an uncommon ability such as clairvoyance, enlightenment or an awakened consciousness?