Whenever we think of the ladder of life, we instinctively think of climbing up and moving to a higher quality of life for ourselves. There’s much we have read and know about the things we need to do to be successful. But the ladder of life works both ways – if we are not careful, it could well become our ladder of fall.

It will serve us well to know and observe in ourselves the stages we go through that leads to our unfortunate fall, even when we want to rise above our challenges.

When we constantly think about something repeatedly, we form an attachment and an intense desire for our object of continuous attention. The desire and attachment start creating an agitation within, to somehow get what we want.

Anything that comes in our way is then met with the negative emotion of anger. And anger has the veiling power of deluding us, and we forget the very principles we upheld to be dear and important to us.

This temporary loss of our higher thinking drags us into behaving and acting at a lower level of our being, causing our downfall. Often we have looked back and wondered as to how we could have behaved the way we did, even when we ought to have known better.

The successive steps of attachment, intense desire, anger, delusion, temporary loss of remembering our higher self, eventually leading to our downfall make us realise that if we are not careful, the ladder of life can well become our ladder of fall.

The ladder of life is an opportunity each one of us has. We have two choices – we can either climb up steadily with awareness, and make it the ladder to a beautiful life, or it can become our ladder of fall. The choice is ours.

(Picture-Scottish countryside)