Here’s the scenario
My mother told me in all honesty one time when she was putting up with a lot of crap from her boss that “we all have to eat shit in our lives” and I said, “yuck, no!” and we tussled about that argument and then I went away and thought a lot about what she said, enough to still be thinking about it today. My father was the opposite, he was the kind that was like “I won’t eat shit from anyone, no way, no time, no how.” He had his flaws too. What came out of the marriage of these two people is that unlike my father who would punch you in the nose if you disagreed and my mother who flinched at any conflict, came me, and I am just trying to keep it real.
I had a crisis of confidence the last month where I was asked to walk the line and I couldn’t. I couldn’t and I thought it was some flaw in me and that it was because of me that I couldn’t do it. But then I came at it from a holistic perspective, and realized I couldn’t walk that line because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t right for me or anyone else. And so I said my peace, and in being me, in being real, I was right, because that line was wrong for me and everyone else. So I had all this agony for no good reason, because had I gone with the BLINK – this doesn’t sound good – instead of fearing for the tendrils that have me in their controls, I would have saved myself a month of agony and been well on my way to where I needed to go.
Last night in bed, I read my copy of Stephen Mitchell’s Tao Te Ching and I opened serendipitously to #20:
Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!
Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don’t care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.
Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.
Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have a purpose;
I alone don’t know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.
I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother’s breasts.