Giving Up for Lent

I’m learning that being better and being different are not the same thing. I can choose to be better than I am, but I cannot make myself be different from what I am.

What I am is, as you are, human.

When Spirit Ru ordered her compostable container for this go-round, she chose the Virgo options package—the gory details available in any astrological writing, but the best description I’ve found being in The Secret Language of Birthdays by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Elffers. While reading the profile of those born on September 2, I wondered how two complete strangers could possibly have nailed every facet of my personality. At my mortal worst, I can be fussy, judgemental, cynical, moody, unyielding and/or explosive. Not pretty.

I can also be generous, compassionate, loving, fair and authentic. The pros might make a shorter list than the cons, but the items indicated on the former weigh more than those on the latter. (My story and I’m sticking to it). I suspect most of the pros came with me from Before. The real challenge lies in mastering my dark side. I can be brutally intolerant, and authenticity is not always a positive trait. Staying on top of my human is truly a practice and some days are doomed. I am especially harsh at fiscal year end, when the stress of balancing the books at work chisels away at my sense of humour, not to mention my patience and normally egalitarian nature.

So, for Lent this year, I thought I’d try to dial it back a bit. Despite neither of us being Catholic, Ter has been studying up on it, and her research suggested that, rather than giving up something like sugar or cigarettes, why not try to be better at something like, say, forgiveness? What a great idea! Don’t make it a sacrificial, negative thing. Put a positive spin on it and improve in a more spiritual way. I can do this, I thought, especially since I’m already working on being more Zen!

Alas, by 7:45 a.m. on Ash Wednesday, Ter had said to me, “There you go again,” three times.

Then I arrived at work. During our mid-morning check in, I burst out ranting about some hare-brained new policy and she said, “There you go again.”

D-oh! Recalibrating ...

I realized something in the following few days. Good bad or indifferent, Virgo Ru is apparently here to stay. I can practice improving on my human, but I will not be able to change it. Nor should I; it’s part of what I am, if not who, and the beauty of this life lies in its flexibility. Every day is a fresh start. The day before doesn’t count and tomorrow doesn’t matter. I’ll never be different from what I am, but by being more mindful, I can be better than I am.

Wish me luck.

With love,

Anywhere But Here

Rough week, last week. Anxieties to address, disruptions to endure, and a rock-your-world for Ter when she was “asked” to give up her office and move (again) to a cubicle at work. That day was the worst, not because she was particularly attached to her office, but because we are all human and change of any ilk is always upsetting—even when it turns out for the best which, in this case, it has.

Before it all turned out, however, and while she worked through her human, the world was a gloomy place. I struggle with my Zen in these moments, torn between believing that all will be well and feeling like the fool on the hill for believing that all will be well. You know, even when things are not okay, you are okay. I am no Pollyanna; I can get as dark and sarcastic as the most miserable cynic. I just choose to seek light in that dark.

Sometimes, though, it’s hard. Sometimes, I don’t even want to try. I just want to lie on the side of the road and let the world go by.

On the worst morning, ahead of a dental appointment I’d been dreading for months, I asked myself where I wanted to be.

Anywhere but here, I thought.

In the next beat, my little voice reminded me that I couldn’t be anywhere but here, so I’d better man up and deal with it. I can’t say it made me feel better. In truth, I wanted to cry because the truth hurts and the truth is that each of us is always Here. In this moment, with neither past nor future, we can only ever be in the present. Good or bad, peaceful or painful, all we have is the moment we’re in right now. Wishing to be elsewhere won’t change it. Nothing you can do will change it. Nope, we’re stuck with right here, right now, so you know what? Make the best of it. Choose how you will live it. If the best you can do is grit your teeth and endure it, do so, but while you’re enduring it, hold fast to another truth: this moment, like all the moments gone before and still to come, will pass. A new moment will replace it, and in that new moment awaits a chance for something better.

Ter is happy in her new space.

My dental appointment was uneventful.

The week is over and we both survived.

Hallelujah.

With love,

Humdrum and Humble

You know the old saying, “Pride cometh before a fall”?

Well, this extraordinary being put her underpants on inside out this morning.

Methinks it’s time to talk about humility. I don’t mean self-effacing comments or putdowns. I mean humility as defined in Webster’s Dictionary, specifically “the absence of pride or self-assertion.”

I think it was Professor Ekkles who said that someone who declares herself to be enlightened is probably not. This comes as something of a relief, as I don’t consider myself to be enlightened. I’m just waking up and trying to stay conscious. Blogging about it is part of my process, kind of like bouncing an idea off a friend to get a better grip on it, myself.

When I began to wake up, I was confronted with an unsettling truth. The world was still the same. My life was still the same. I was – and am – changing, but the daily grind remained more of a grind than I thought it would be once I regained consciousness.

Rats.

Then, Zen wisdom was brought to my attention:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”

I love this saying. It’s a reminder that, no matter how extraordinary I may be, the humdrum beats on and I must march to it. I can view it through a cleaner lens, but at its base, life is still a series of challenges—and just as I may excel at chopping wood, many folks are better at carrying water, enlightened or no.

It’s the same trap that snares higher-educated people. Those letters that pop up after your name when you’ve gotten your degree do not make you smarter than a high-school graduate or someone who had to quit school early to support the family. They just mean that a) you were lucky enough to go to university and b) you know more about your chosen field of study and may be entitled to more money assuming you can find a job in that field. Masters degrees or doctorates don’t make you worthier than anyone else of love or acceptance or kindness or patience except in the egotistically conditional sense, and that has little to do with why we’re really here.

We are all worthy of love and acceptance and kindness and patience, regardless of education or social status—or in spite of it, for that matter. We are all extraordinary. Yet, as I discovered while getting dressed this morning, the ordinary is designed to keep us humble.

With greater love,

* * *

Tears For Fears released a song back in 1995, the title of which I borrowed for this post. It’s an awesome song – hear it here and enjoy!