I was thinking about yesterday’s post. In the process, I was reminded of all the things I learned in spite of the pain. And I thought about my firm conviction that growth usually happens as a result of suffering--maybe that’s why every life has some. When things are going well, we have little incentive to think about them or to try and change them in any way. In fact, we are probably more likely to cling to and grasp at whatever it is that we think is the cause of our good fortune. As I said yesterday, though, all is impermanent--the good times and the bad times, the boring times and the exciting times, the joy and the pain--it is all here for awhile and then gone. So it is important to remember the gifts that come with each thing and to be grateful for the lessons that we get to learn along the way.
I have learned plenty of lessons in my five years here. Many of them I am sure I will come to appreciate even more when there is some time and distance between me and the experience. Some I am sure that I am not even aware of yet. One of my biggest realizations has been that without my five years here, I would probably not be able to do this project. The person I am now is not the person I was when I rode into town. That person would not have so readily jumped at the chance to do something like this. Oh, I would sometimes think about doing it. But then I would rationalize about why it wasn’t time, or how I didn’t have the resources, or how no one would want to talk to me anyway--and on and on. So there’s one lesson learned. I am far more comfortable now going with the flow. I am comfortable with uncertainty. And I no longer have any delusions about being able to control anything other than my own thoughts, feelings, reactions, etc. Maybe people won’t want to talk to me. Ok, then, I will figure out some other way to make something meaningful out of the process. And really, what are the odds that no one at all will want to speak to me? Pretty slim, I’d say. So I have learned to observe the thoughts and stories that spiral out from my brain in a given circumstance and to let them go--maybe even laugh at them.
Letting go--there’s another big one. I sometimes feel that I have done nothing but let go for years. I have let go of attachment to outcomes, I have let go of other people’s issues that I somehow felt compelled to fix for them, I have let go of my ideas about what kind of community involvement I would have here. I have learned to accept help from people in a generous way, even though sometimes it is painful to do so. I have learned that sometimes people really do want to help. Before, I simply tried to do everything myself so I would not be a burden on others. Somewhere along the line I realized that instead of feeling like I was a burden, people genuinely wanted to help and that it was OK for me to let them do that. This is also something that I had to understand before we could do a project like this, since we will be relying on people giving us their time and stories at the very least.
I have learned that things come flying at me out of nowhere. When I think I have nothing left, something comes from somewhere--a kind word, a check, a bit of work, a bag of garden produce. Whatever I need shows up and it is my job to be open to that and to accept it. This also means that I cannot plan far in advance and try to control every outcome. I think this is a human tendency because we are looking for security. But I have seen too many people throughout my life sacrifice their own lives for some hope of a kind of security that simply does not exist in this human existence. Someone recently told us that we are living on the edge, but that things always seem to work out. I think everyone is living on the edge. The only difference between me and them is that I know this and they seem to be trying not to know this. After all, cars run red lights, planes fall out of the sky, people we love leave us through death or abandonment, cancer, heart attacks, strokes happen, or the CEO runs off with the retirement money you socked away for decades and you’re left with nothing. How do we protect ourselves from those things? The truth is, we can’t prevent bad things from happening. All we can do is learn to tap into our inner strength and wisdom so that when they do happen, we have the resources to deal with them in productive ways. That is probably the biggest lesson I have learned here and I think that it will serve me well throughout this project and beyond.
