A Middle Finger in Our Heart

Oh man, only 9 left. I am looking forward to taking a break from it now that I have it set in my mind.

Building on the topic of honesty from the day before yesterday.

I struggle with the idea of smiling through anger and just patting people on the back when you want to strangle them. I don’t struggle with managing it. That’s easy. I struggle with the dishonesty of it.

This kind of behavior is very much a part of the culture where I live. We couch it in Christian love and Southern hospitality, but at its core it’s dishonest. It quickly turns passive aggressive and condescending and retaliatory because the person can’t maintain it for long. It’s too hard to hide the truth for any significant length of time.

The smile on our face can only hide the middle finger in our heart for so long.

A smile on our face is window dressing, the middle finger in our heart is the actual product. It turns us into a bright red apple that is full of worms. A house with new windows and doors and a manicured lawn that is full of rats. A car with a new paint job and tinted windows without an engine or seats. I wonder if it would just be better to have the middle finger on our face and be done with it. At least then the problem could be dealt with, and everyone could move forward in honesty.

Is it honest to smile at people when you have a middle finger in your heart?
 
Is there a way to address things instead of hiding them?
 
Is conflict always wrong?

In the Club

Are you in the club?

We all have our out-groups and in-groups. People who are in our club and people who aren’t.

People we automatically trust a little more than we trust others, people who get a free pass.

People we automatically distrust a little more, people who have to work a little harder to be in our more inner circles.

This makes the world easier to navigate. It also, like all shortcuts, causes us to miss huge parts of the trip and may cost us vital information along the way. All convenience has hidden problems woven into it.

At their heart, convenience and labels and categories are there to help us think less. To make decisions more quickly and with less deliberation. This is good in many ways. There is no way we can consider every possibility on every decision. I get that.

This is problematic when it comes to people, whether they are in our club or in another club. We make decisions before we have all the facts or even any of the facts. We make decisions before we even meet the person.

What happens when you aren’t in the club?

A lot of people never have to encounter this is any real way. If they look like the dominant club, think like the dominant club and believe what the dominant club believes, everything is fine for them. They don’t actually have to know they are in a club or that there is even a club to be in. For them, it is simply the way things are and everyone who isn’t in their club is weird or wrong or misled. Water to a fish.

This doesn’t  mean that their club has all the answers or that there is nothing good in other clubs. It doesn’t mean they are right or best or most beautiful. It just means they are in the biggest club. The one with the most members, in their particular geographic region, in their particular time period. Someone somewhere else thinks their club is the best because it is the biggest.

What clubs are you in?

How do you view people who are in your club?

What about people in a club different from yours?

How quickly do you trust someone just because they profess to be in your club?

Are there ways these shortcuts could be costing you?

Difficult Responses

“Do you really believe that what people do doesn’t matter? Is your response really all you care about?”

People Matter. So Does Your Response.

Yes and no.

Yes, I do believe that my response to what people do is what matters because it is all I have control over. Yes, I do think that what people do is often neutral, and I just dislike it because it is inconvenient for me. These things are true.

But also, no.

I very much believe that what we all do matters, and I do care about the choices people make and how they behave. I would not be writing a daily blog if I didn’t. I wouldn’t be a counselor, and I wouldn’t work as hard as I do. I wouldn’t be invested in teaching meditation.

Response to Difficult People

Of course what other people do matters and affects us. I very often see people approach situations in their lives in a way that is unskillful, and very often harmful. A great deal of what I walk with people through is a result of things other people have done to them. We are not isolated beings unaffected by those around us.

We are a messy, mean and stupid species in so many ways. We are suicidally disinterested in being intentional in our lives, and almost completely self-absorbed. This seems fairly obvious. There is no way around the fact that my life would be much less complicated and much more peaceful without other people in it. The same is probably true of yours.

But, the uncomfortable thing about all of this is that all the stupid, messy stuff that people do makes sense to them. There is some kind of math going on in their head that makes it seem like a good idea. They have a reason for it, and you most likely won’t be able to talk them out of it in any real way very quickly. For all we know, they are making the right choice for themselves too. Inconvenient for me does not equal wrong.

Your Response Is All You Have

So, it all comes down to our response to the things we cannot control. It all comes down to how we react to the things that happen to us, whether they happen because of other people or not. To get caught up in how someone else should have behaved or what they should have done is foolish.

Respond with compassion.

Be kind.

Put yourself in their shoes.

Understand that you are not perfect.

Deal with what is in front of you.

Focus on how you respond to that.

I promise, it will keep you busy.

So yes, what other people do matters and it can affect us. But no, I do not think there is much purpose in getting too invested in things that are beyond our control. We can offer help when people ask for it, but it is still within their control.

My response is all I’ve got. That’s where I put my energy.

Taking a Break, Tough Economic Times, and Throwing Up

Welcome to the Sunday Pop-Up, where I write about whatever pops into my head.

I have decided to take at least a month off from blogging once I hit the full year. It’s not that I don’t like writing this or getting it ready each morning, it is honestly just because I cannot find anywhere else to cut time from to work on a few other things. I just don’t know where else to shift – I really don’t have a lot of time I just waste. After I get some things rolling and get in the groove of doing them, I will go back to blogging if anyone still cares about it.

We are up in New Mexico right now. It was a rough drive. I wound up throwing up and feeling sicker than I have ever felt – it was weird. I was shaking and couldn’t hold my head up, but a good night’s sleep made a huge difference. Barbara and I went hiking today and we spent the evening around the campfire with family and friends. I feel like I have been on vacation for a week. Time with good people is important.

It seems like we may be looking at some difficult economic times in the near future, most notably in relation to gas prices. Unfortunately, this applies to everything associated with gas, which is everything else. It might be time to put a little money aside so that we can help ourselves and others. One cool thing about tough times is the way you see the best come out in so many people. Sure, the worst comes out in others but they are a small number compared to everyone else.

It’s a cool world, with a lot of cool people in it.

Enjoy your week.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

It’s Not Me

I like to think that I struggle because of other people.

I tell myself that most of the problems in my life come from other people’s decisions, rather than my own.

I keep my stuff in line.

I take care of what I need to take care of.

I do what I need to do.

I maintain.

I.

I.

I. 

Much of the frustration or inconvenience in my life is the result of other people not keeping their stuff in line, not taking care of what they need to take care of, not maintaining.

This is what my mind likes to tell me at least.

Fine, It Is Me

The first problem with this idea is that I am, of course, not perfect and am, at the very least, responsible for some of the difficulty in my life. The second problem is that when I am focused on what other people are doing, I am not focused on what I am doing. Lastly, it is my response that is causing me trouble here. I cannot see that if I am looking at everyone around me.

It is delusional to think we are not the source of our suffering – other people can bring us pain and annoyance and difficulty, but these things only turn into suffering through our perspective on them.

So, instead of looking at what everyone around me is doing, it may be easier if I focus on my response to it. Even if I was all great and cool and perfect, other people would be able to bring me suffering if my response to their actions was not great and cool and perfect. The good news is that I can avoid suffering even though I am deeply flawed and profoundly foolish.

Maybe.

Eat Everything

Eat Everything

It’s funny that this is the post that I lost when Word just crashed on me. I did not handle it with equanimity. It had already been a tough day at the end of a tough week. I was going to catalog it all in detail but decided I didn’t want to give the difficulties that much air time.

Ram Dass talks about how everything is “grist for the mill” of awakening or enlightenment or growth or evolution, whatever you want to call it. You get grist by separating the grain from the chaff before grinding it into flour. It is on its way to being something useful and nourishing.  Bad experiences and tough days are no different.

We can choose our perspective on what happens. It can be debilitating and unfair, or it can be fuel for growth and seeds for evolution.  You can explain this however you want – God’s will, karma, the universe helping you out, whatever. It can simply be an intentional stance we take, a chosen perspective that no matter what happens we are going to grow from it and be better on the other side. A decision to choose our reaction.

Eat the Weeds

We can’t always choose what kind of seeds life plants for us. Sometimes it’s roses. Sometimes it’s just thorns. We can be mindful of what we plant, but a few weeds are going to slip through. We can resist and resent these, or we can learn to eat weeds.

If we can learn to do that, the weeds don’t matter anymore.

It’s all just food.