I just realized Niel Strauss, author of The Game (which I'm currently reading and loving, btw), is ten months younger than I am.
The last couple of days I've been on a job out of town that found me doing loss prevention for a company who had been bought and the workers were waiting to hear if the new owners would let them go on or liquidate them. They were a great team of people, many of whom had been working at the company their whole lives. The manager, a really sweet man in his late 40s (I'm guessing), had instructed them all to stay positive and to continue with business as usual until they knew something definitive.
Everyone was worried, but they were all focused on doing the best they knew how in the face of uncertainty. They welcomed me, when they could have been hostile. They let me sit at the desk of the woman who was out on maternity leave. They let me drink their coffee and shared the homemade cookies someone's wife had made.
I was there when the call came in that the decision had been made to liquidate them. Again, from the top down, everyone handled themselves with grace and dignity. I had a dream that night that I was standing in line for Chinese takeout and I heard a voice ringing in my ears, "Everyone has to go through this."
I believe in the way of cause and effect that these people have given great customer service to so many others through the years that if people know they are looking for jobs they will have offers. And I hope that they find blessings amidst the trials.
While I was on the job, I was also able to see a friend of mine who was my roommate back in college. She found out that the breast cancer she had removed a couple years ago is probably back. She is handling that with grace as well.
I was there to witness all of this and to grow my compassion for people, to see their strength of character shining through.
At the same time, I have my own struggles, that by comparison don't seem that deep. I have a crush on a younger guy that's not going to go anywhere. I need to get laid. My writing career isn't where I'd like it to be, and I'm kinda jealous when I look at people like Neil Strauss who are my age but have found a greater foothold in their chosen path. I'm not saying that teaching (my first career path) wasn't the right thing to do (What is right?), but I know that had I been able to be the writer I was meant to be from the start, I might be in a different place. It's pointless to think about, but at times I do... We all play the "Capital W/Capital I" game, the "What If?"...
On top of that, the Universe has been pushing me pretty hard to deal with my shit.
You know, once you've done the work to clean up most of your metaphysical yard, that's the time you can't avoid seeing the deep sinkholes that you've been glancing over in favor of the surface shit this whole time.
I can feel that there is, metaphorically speaking, a big pair of shoes that I need to step into. This is the power that I was meant to have (really that all of us have the potential to have). And the small part of me, the child inside, is scared to take that step. If I am powerful, then I am responsible, right? My little self has problems with that.
It's like if I step up, I am doing the equivalent of getting on a plane I can't get off of once the doors are shut and being flown to a foreign country where I don't know the language and I am worried that I'll be asked to do things I don't have the strength to do.
I have only a couple of fears left in life. One is whether or not I am strong enough to do what needs done. The other is whether or not I am worthy of the best things in life.
Each of the books that I just read while on my job this last week have commented on that. The Game talks quite a bit about building and believing that one is worth all of the best things the world has to offer. I also had picked up Think and Grow Rich again and one of the questions it asked me to contemplate in the fear section is this: "Are you conscious of possessing spiritual forces of sufficient power to enable you to keep your mind free from all forms of fear?"
I have to be able to believe that I am strong enough and adaptable enough to do whatever the universe asks of me, and if my own self is insufficient, that I am aligned enough with the universal desire/stream of energy that it would bolster me to be able to accomplish what I need to do.
I've been thinking about Sarah Connor in T2, and the fact that since she believed the future was going to be FUBAR, she had gotten ripped, built up a stockpile of weapons which she knew how to use, and had generally become a bad-ass. Granted she had actually gone through the experience of having a Terminator chasing her to give her evidence for that future, but still... I think about what I would do if I really thought that I would need all of my skills and strength for all the possible trials and I see how far I am lacking.
I feel like a child in that if I stick my head in the sand, the monsters can't see me. Or if I hide under the blanket, I'm invisible. In other words, if I don't prepare for any eventuality and become stronger, then nothing bad will come to pass. I should know better... this is child-like mind. But it's how my actions have been in my life before.
If I don't step into those shoes of power (sounds like a superhero donning her boots, yes?) then it's not my fault whatever happens or what I do (or don't do in this case).
"With great power comes great responsibility" is an easy thing to say. Most people think they'd like power. I know that I have made mistakes in past lives with the power issue. I've let righteous anger be the spark that burns down the entire village (but it's ok because they deserved it, right?).
A very dear friend of mine and a healer in her own right said to me that the little girl part of me isn't responsible for what happens when I am powerful... but my adult self is. And it is the adult part of me that needs to reassure my small self that it's ok to take this step to become. And then, it is her duty in many ways to then step forward and become that self. And I won't know what all that entails until I'm asked to do it. It's like a potluck, and one day I might be getting lasagna and the next liver. But I have to believe I am strong enough to do handle whatever is on the table that day, one day at a time.
I need to have the grace under pressure that those workers did when they didn't know their fates yet. They did the best they could, one day at a time, and tried to keep their faith...
On the more mundane side of things, I need to feel that I am worthy of creating the kind of life that would most feed me and would be most fulfilling.
I don't necessarily think that universal service negates some of the fabulous things that the world has to offer. I am not a monk, nor will I be (at least I don't think so in this lifetime).
It just makes for an odd headspace to have the sacred and mundane all jumbled in my brain, and to hear one of the zen masters tell me that in the end, all things which are mundane are sacred and all that are sacred are mundane.
I'm trying to be honest here. I created this blog so as not to have to edit myself to look better than I am because of the fear that my mother would be reading over my shoulder. I am envious of Neil Strauss, even though I don't know if he is really loving his life or not. I see that he has a career I'd like. I know we aren't supposed to desire too much, but damn, that's a hard thing to do when you feel like you've been driven your whole life to want to become something that seems out of reach.
If I can calm down and live in the moment, I understand that I have a pretty wonderful life. There is nothing wrong in this moment, though I wish I had ice cream instead of the peach flavored tea I am drinking. I would like to be having hot, rough sex tonight, but I'll be lucky if I get to stay awake long enough to masturbate again. I wish I had a book deal and a movie being sold.
I know that I should be creating my own reality, and dealing with my shit, and working on my plans for a 5K run... tonight I'm just not that brave or motivated.
But tomorrow, maybe...
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