What to Do When the World Is Parked upon One’s Last Nerve
Aug 26th, 2011 by Kimberly
The world can be a very relative place. Some days, I look at what new sewage is being dumped in which previous pristine part of the planet, at the battles over what land lies inside which country’s boundaries, at the people subjugating other people, and I can’t believe how awful we are to one another. Other days, I look around my city at which hatchback cuts off which semi-truck on the freeway, and which kid just threw a baseball at which sibling’s head, and I’m amazed any of us is still alive.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wake up to find that little things bug me a lot more than usual. I can think up explanations for it, if I look for them – a missed dose of Prozac, an hour or two less sleep than I really needed, an existential crisis (why are there so many songs about rainbows – wait, I can only think of one besides the song that’s asking the question, maybe Kermit is just messing with my head!). Nothing ever explains it fully, though. I could arrange my life to have all those things happen on purpose (if, say, I had completely lost my mind), but I’m not sure the effect would be there on cue. Some days I can handle whatever comes down the street, even if it is driving an SUV with the stereo cranked up to Sonic Boom level. Other days, I just wake up looking for things to annoy me, and I never have any trouble finding them. If I had to pick one side or the other, I’d call myself a skeptical optimist. I hope for good things to happen, while simultaneously planning for the worst case scenario.
Events of late have certainly given me a good chance to hone my disaster-preparedness skills. Warfare, pollution, and of course the usual amount of man’s inhumanity to man (which I so wish were limited to men, but isn’t). Given all of this, how in the world is the optimist in me supposed to survive?
I’ve given this a lot of thought lately. While walking back from a lovely dinner the other day, a friend spoke of an article she’d read about the Dalai Lama. He spends part of his time breathing in the thought of all the unhappy things in the world: war, disease, famine, anything in life from which most of us would run screaming. He takes these things in on purpose, trying to absorb the energy of suffering and pain. (It’s called Lama Yeshe. It’s described something like “breathing in a smoky black energy,” and evidently all Tibetan lamas practice it. Just a tip, this is not for beginners.) The idea is to circumvent one’s “me first” tendencies, and thus to open the spirit to a better world, where you don’t put yourself above others. It made me think of Mother Teresa, trying to improve the lot of the poorest people in the world, and as a result, frequently, voluntarily living in poverty herself. How on earth does anyone do this? How do you breathe in the stench of the world today and continue to work for a sweeter-smelling tomorrow?
I suppose it doesn’t hurt that each is (or in Mother Teresa’s case, was – well, still is on some level) a more spiritually evolved person than I will probably ever be. But that’s the great thing about enlightenment – it isn’t really about the destination. Wherever you start, you can always find a greater level of peace in your life. Whether that means going from relative contentment to bliss or from emotional ashes to a matchlight of hope depends entirely on your own circumstances, and both represent an incredible victory.
So, the question remains…how? When I look around and see a co-worker willing to throw the rest of us under the bus to avoid punishment, a new load of street litter to replace the stuff that just got swept up, a story on CNN about CEOs who are being rewarded for screwing up our economy? How do we deal when there are things around us that, in all honesty, probably won’t get better?
The other day, I had a miserable day at work. My in-basket overflowed with invoices designed to defy linear thinking, and no one was available to help me untangle the mathematical mess. In frustration, I went into my friend’s office and babbled out my despair. She smiled sympathetically and said, “Remember, this is only your job. I know you care about it and you want to do it well, but it isn’t your real life.” It made me think of the friends (including herself) who had taken me out for my recent birthday, my nephews that I would get to hug in a couple of weeks, and especially my beloved cat Zoe, who would fondly smush her furry head against my leg that evening as she waited impatiently for the nightly tuna distribution. These were the things that were real. All the rest of that stuff out there in the world – well, it was really just stuff, and not worth getting all that upset about.
I think that’s how people like Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama pull this kind of stuff off. They make sure to spend part of their lives – part of each day – connecting with their source of inspiration. They constantly look for new ways to connect. Since that day, every time I get irritated with life, I think about Zoe. She herself is not divine, of course. (Especially not when she’s throwing up in the middle of the night in strategic places of the living room floor.) But she always carries God’s goodness with her. Whatever irritations (or vomit) might be mixed in with it, the love is there. I like to think that God is loving me through her. God loves me in lots of ways, but that’s one of the more tangible pieces of love I get in a day.
I try my best to fix the bad things in the world, to the extent that I can. I try to forgive the people who hurt me and make amends to the people that I hurt. However, in order to stay sane, I have to acknowledge that there are things in the world beyond my control, and I have to let them go. It occurred to me that being in a state of perpetual unhappiness about the misery of life is in point of fact just adding to the misery. That doesn’t help anyone. To quote a snippet of the Dalai Lama, “If I dwell on how awful everything is, I immediately lose my peace of mind.”
Just for today, find something that is good. Enjoy it, and be thankful that it is there. You will re-align yourself with the good by taking a mental step away from all the things that drive you crazy, and you might just help the world to become a better place.
Kimberly is grateful for Zoe, who always improves her mood. She’s like chocolate without the calories.
