The other day I woke up feeling crummy. Nothing too serious. Nothing serious at all. A slight headache, a bit of a queasy stomach, just a general malaise. Ordinarily, I would push myself through the day figuring I would get over it. This day I decided not to. I decided to listen to my body's signals and take the day off.All well and good.
Then my ego checked in. Every decision I made turned into an argument: "me" versus "me". My ego was fine with my message and email checking, but gave me trouble when I decided to push myself away from the computer and go lie down. It did everything it could to create tension. This background noise went everywhere with me. It sounded something like this:
"you'renotreallysick,you'rejustbeinglazy,youreallyneedtogettowork, cleanthehouse,dothelaundry,walkthedog,plandinner,getup,watchingTVisawasteof time,readingthisbookisawasteoftime,getbacktoyourcomputer,etc,etc."
After a while, I just listened to it talk, and did what I wanted to do. It wasn't easy, but I did it.
I was amazed at what a tyrant I was. It seems that I really don't want myself to lift my nose off my own, personal grindstone. Then I realize that the "striving me" is really the "ego me", and the relaxed and happy me wonders who I'm doing all the efforting for. Who taught me to value drudgery so much? Why do I make these voices so important?
Sure, I know that times are tough, and I think that if I don't work hard I won't be able to, well, live like I want to live. we are all told, in fact it's our cultural myth, that hard work is the key to our success, yet I know some pretty hard workers who are poor, and some pretty relaxed people who make tons of money. Even if you don't define "success" as having a ton's of money, let's say "spiritual growth" means success for you. Yet even this desire can be just another way of judging ourselves and letting ourselves down. No matter how much we want to be Buddah, we still lose our tempers and then beat ourselves up for not measuring up to the arbitrary standards we ourselves set.
Most importantly, living with all this tension is certainly not living the way I want to live. My desire to live up to an impossible ideal means that I'm making a more organic and peaceful life the dream of a distant future.
Do I have to be miserable and driven until then? What about NOW?
No matter where I am, vis-a-vie money, spiritual growth, happiness, health, I'm not going to be able to truly make the goals I set for myself (I.E. freedom and happiness) if I don't relax and accept where I am right now. After all, the reason I want more money or spiritual peace is that I think it will make me happy. Why don't I just short circut the whole striving thing and simply BE HAPPY.
So I've made a decision. I've decided that I'm no longer going to be the warden of my own self-imposed prison. My ego is not going to rule my days, defining how hard I work and how valuable I am. I'm going to set myself free from all the negative self-talk and just BE, when I can, and BE HAPPY when I can without waiting for arbitray goals to be fulfilled. I can do it! I know I can! Whoops, that's starting to sound like another, well, goal. Hmmmm.
I admit, despite my decision, the magic doesn't work all at once or all the time; but at least I know what I want (freedom) and when I want it (NOW). I also notice that when I think about how I want to feel,the voices in my head aren't so dominent. They sound more like this:
"you'renotreallysick,you'rejustbeinglazy,youreallyneedtogettowork, cleanthehouse,dothelaundry,walkthedog,plandinner,getup,watchingTVisawasteof time,readingthisbookisawasteoftime,getbacktoyourcomputer,etc,etc."
Phew. Creating that is actually pretty easy. All I have to do, really, is just think about how I want to feel. Ahhh, that's more like it. That feels pretty good. Good enough.
Love, Kristine
