Today I'm not going to talk about the news, though there's plenty of material there to be sure. Rather, I'm going to talk about the sort of stuff that can really get you into trouble: feelings and truth (or at least the truth as one sees it to be).
I've been surprised a lot lately, and disappointed a bit as well. Things did not go as expected on several fronts, but instead of finding myself hurt or angered by these events, I'm choosing to read the tea leaves of what these occurrences have to tell me.
It's appropriate that with Summer meshing into Fall, I am attempting to turn one set of circumstances into another. I am reminded of the conversation I had earlier in the week with a very dear friend who had just gotten some "bad" or disappointing news. She'd already come to this conclusion for herself which I knew to be correct and found to be inspiring: she knew that what had happened would likely be, in the long run, for the best. And she even gathered new information about herself and her future from this "bad" news. She now realizes there are options available that she had not seen clearly before. If you are familiar with the "Maybe, Maybe Not" wisdom tales from the Buddhist tradition, you know of what I speak.
And it's like that for me now. What is my reaction telling me about myself: my wishes and my reality, what I want for myself and how I choose to use my limited attention span? This is not to be confused with making lemonade out of lemons. I see the damned citrus sitting there and I've sat down with it too. It has covered me with its sticky sting and tried to sour me, so I'm not blissing out of the reality. But I am choosing to say this: "You know what? I can only control myself and any power I attempt to wield beyond that is futile and stupid, and a giant waste of my time and energy!" (I try not to yell such things in the canned goods aisle too often.) The other thing I'm NOT saying is that dumb-assed and rusty old saw, which I believed for quite a number of years, things happen for a reason. NO, they do not.
Stephen King once wrote or spoke of his view on this in the terms of "the random" and "the purposed". I'd put it this way: Some things happen because it is in their nature to occur at just such a time and other things are absolutely random, in all likelihood because one of us went where we we're supposed to be or acted in a way that was not in our plans. Sh*t happens, in other words. Our job is to use the compost wisely.
So that which you do not let get under your skin can tap into your mind and open your eyes to just what it is that makes you "you". Just because something hits you out of nowhere doesn't mean that the blow won't leave a really helpful bruise. Another alias this principle goes by is this: those things we do not learn through love we are taught by pain. Hey, a lesson's a lesson no matter who is standing at the dry erase board, staring you down for an answer.
I'll leave you with this (and please remind me I said this when I forget next time): Let the parade of emotions wash over you if you can before leaping to conclusions much less action. Unless someone's pointing a gun at you, give it a few days to stew and go through its contortions. You only know what you can see in front of you and if you give yourself a broader vantage point you'll probably come out of the experience a lot better than you went into it. In short, let people screw up and try to remember all the times when they didn't.
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