Monday Motivation: Silence

Again, I defer to Om Swami…

… Once upon a time a farmer lost his watch while working in the barn. This was not just any watch but his most favorite possession. His late father had given it to him decades ago. He searched for it frantically, in every nook and corner of his barn. He turned the hay upside down but it was nowhere to be found.

Somewhat distraught, hardly had he sat down when he heard children playing outside. He asked them for help and promised a reward of $20 to the one who would find it. Excited, eager and hopeful, the children rummaged through the whole area, practically combing every haystack, yet they couldn’t find it either. They gave up and went back to playing. The farmer thought he would never see his watch again.

“Can you give me a chance?” a small boy tugged at his coat.
“I don’t mind,” the farmer said, surprised to see a little contender. “But, other children and I’ve already searched everywhere.”
“I know,” he said. “I would still like to try.”
The farmer had nothing to lose so he let him in and carried on with his chores in the field.

A mere twenty minutes later, the young boy went running up to him.
“I found it!” he said, and, opened his hands revealing the watch.
The farmer picked him up in his arms, and said joyously, “How on earth did you find it?”
“I just sat on the ground and listened to silence,” the boy replied. “After a few minutes, I heard the watch ticking. The rest was easy.”

We are desperately searching for our lost possessions, emotions and love, turning the world upside down only to feel tired a bit later. And then we sit down, we wonder, we worry, we muse, we reflect, we accept, we relax. In that state of mind, life appears like the young boy and hands it back to us.

Sometimes, the greatest way to search is to not search at all. When you don’t search and just let it be, then you hear the watch ticking, you hear how life’s bubbling over and you see the beauty in everything. When that happens, you realize that everything you already have is a prized possession in its own right, the present moment being the greatest of all…

Vulnerability

I go for days without saying anything and then you can’t shut me up to save my life… Also, it doesn’t help that I have just finished drinking what I have determined to be “enough to help me pass out for the rest of the night” (be advised that there will probably be a rant-y post tomorrow about the things that I WANT – because, for fuck’s sake, I am really starting to feel like all I am is a purse that people reach into when they feel like they ‘need’ something frivolous *sigh* — except for Thing #1 and Thing #2, bless their loving hearts.)

My last post was difficult for me to finish. I started it three days ago feeling something totally different from what I felt when I finished it. Somewhere in the middle I actually wrote, to be deleted before I published it, “I can’t write this any more. I’m just not feeling it…” (there was more, but I deleted it, and I have been drinking tequila so my recall is severely impaired). Maybe you can tell what point that was, maybe you can’t, but I know and I can tell…

I find myself in this dilemma more and more often: I really, REALLY want him to be mine. (Maybe not mine as much as NOT HERS!!!!) While there are times when I can cope with being “last on his list” there are other times when I wish I was the ONLY one on that list. And those times are coming more and more often. This is exactly what I was feeling when I got all entitled with him, some time back, and he stopped talking to me. You will read a tiny bit more about that in a sec…

Who determines when we can or cannot be selfish??? I feel like a pretty selfless person most of the time. I try to base my life on gratitude. I try to think of all the things I am thankful for, every single day. I try to thank the people I am thankful to — and mean it. I even think of how I am even thankful for Mr. Doom-n-Gloom (that’s probably why I let him stay living in my home for so long). I want to emulate the inner peace of Buddha. But, I cannot possibly make peace with this one simple fact: nothing lasts forever.

Ironically, those were the words I told myself over and over again in High School and then again when Loverman wasn’t talking to me for 5+ months (3 years ago now? At least that’s how long I HOPE it was — I was so unhappy and empty and alone, and I tried to be happy; I TRIED to get past him). Those words worked magically in High School, I practically meditated on them. But no matter how many times I told myself those words when Loverman had left me, my mind always repeated back to me, “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back it was meant to be.” Those words counteracted what I was trying to convince myself — NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY LAST FOREVER!

New thoughts…

I WANT to be vulnerable around Loverman, but every time I expose myself (and NOT in the flesh, that’s not a problem) I really want to pull myself away from him. It’s like I am looking for reasons to be mad at him. Usually I can rationalize with myself that I am begin IRrational, but when vulnerability is concerned I just can’t do it.

I am being oversensitive right now. Because I shared something with him that made me feel vulnerable, now that I can’t spend the ‘correct’ amount of time with him, my mind starts to tell itself that the reason he isn’t responding to me is because I scared him off by letting him see ‘too much’ of me.

Part of me that wants to fight those thoughts, but right now the ‘evil’ thoughts prevail. It has been this way all day so you can’t tell me it’s the tequila talking — that’s just what’s helping me be so forthcoming here. Right now my mind is telling me that he isn’t responding as much as I want him to because I scared him away or, even worse, he’s sick of me!

A lady that I work with is talking to me about these same issues. Today she told me that she looks up to me and how I handle things. Although I find that flattering, I also find it flabbergasting. Her father killed himself and I am trying to make heads or tails of my feelings about a fucking affair!

How fucked up is it that even that fact can’t bring me back to rationality?!?