Day: October 15, 2017

I’ve always been fascinated by idioms. As a sociologist the idea that specific turns of phrase survive beyond the original context to become part of the language code of a specific region is gold. Idioms are memes. So when I hear people tell me I have ‘too many irons in the fire’ I giggle to myself, because it has been a very long time since anyone put an iron in a fire with the hopes of forging a steel tool or weapon or horseshoe or… even understanding what that process looks like. What is meant behind the phrasing is simple: I have way too much shit going on. That part at least is real. In fact I secretly (and until now privately) nicknamed myself Ironkiller because I am actively trying to remove the amount of ‘shit’ going on in my life.

What is hard about the process is that I cannot half-ass any of it. In terms of football, I’m the Head Coach now and that brings with it a new level of responsibility and planning–especially if I am not going to be at the practice to execute the plan. At school I have a number of responsibilities that demand my attention. Most are semester based, so I need to stay completely on top of them. It feels like the work that does get shifted to the back burner is always the stuff that I care about. It is always the work that belongs to me alone.

In this case I’m talking about my writing. I have allowed the novel to become Lord Commander of the Back Burner. There it lives in full control of my stray thoughts and hopes. There it can build an army of worries and doubts that populate the space at the back of my mind. There it can live a full life and, eventually, die.

This is wholly unacceptable. What I truly need is a base level of understanding of how much stuff I can effectively do and a plan to manage that over the course of a day in a way that allows room for everything and no back burner philosophy. Of course, this is what I’ve been looking for my entire life.

Still looking.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Another person cannot kill your desire. That is merely an excuse for whatever doubt already lived inside of you. Yes, pain and suffering is real, but those things are part of life and meant to be dealt with. Any quitting is entirely the result of you giving up on you. So, stop blaming other people and get to work.
2. My mom lives on whim alone. Unfortunately whenever she has one of these moments of whimsy the world is expected to stop functioning and immediately rush to her aid so that she can accomplish whatever bit of ridiculousness that has currently absorbed her thinking. This leads to a great deal of anger from the people around her–especially my kids who ‘don’t have time for that’ or even an ounce of the patience required. It is a great lesson in patience, because she is really tough to deal with.
3. Loving is hard. Sometimes it can be absolutely unbearable.

Lately I’ve been all about the Thich Nhat Hanh quotes. As I move closer and closer to a more buddhist practice (and not just philosophical stance) I am finding his words particularly enlightening. He says, for example, “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” If I apply this to my relationships it helps me to recognize that I do have a fear of the unknown. Particularly I have a fear of being and eventually dying alone. I do not prefer that end. I hope to find my way to the clearing with my partner holding my hand. Still, circumstance continues to remind me that I have chosen an emotional path that closes me off from any realistic and obtainable options. This is largely due to the fact that I have personally decided upon one option and one partner and that choice–that discovery of a soulmate–changed everything for me. There is no iteration of reality where I don’t see us hand in hand as I find that clearing at the end of the road.

What Thich Nhat Hanh is talking about is present suffering and mindfulness. He is speaking to the fears we have of letting go now. In fact he writes, “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” So we let go with hope of tomorrow. Then we take action and we are mindful of those actions so that we can be mindful of his next lesson to realize that, “My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.” This lesson is where I sit now. I am at once burned out on teaching and love. The stress and fatigue of both flow into each other creating a deluge at the edge of my consciousness threatening to breach the dam of my actions. I exist in a space where I have stepped far back from ‘Meet them where they are’ and far towards, “If they aren’t already there they don’t matter.” The latter is a place ruined teachers go, and I don’t mean to be that person.

Awareness isn’t action. I’m taking responsibility to have positive actions that move me forward and affect those around me in a positive way. It is a difficult and slow step, but one that will ultimately point me in the direction of a healthy life both mentally and physically.