Written Along the Way

Today is the first day of school. Does anyone like the first day of school? I’m not even the one going to school and I’m still bummed that summer vacation is over. I didn’t really like school as a kid. I mostly liked being with all the other kids and I guess I liked learning new things but all the rules! And just because someone has chosen to work in a school with kids doesn’t mean they’re good at being with kids or relating to kids or even being a role model for kids. A lot of the adults I remember were so uptight and thought everything was black and white. Shit’s not black and white, especially as a teenager. All that bullshit was a big part of why I didn’t like school and my own kids have been dealing with the same exact bullshit since they were in preschool and they see it and call it out and it’s probably a part of why they aren’t excited to go back to school either. I know some parents have been looking forward to today because they think their kids need structure or they want a break from feeling like they have to entertain their kids or whatever. I get it but I’ll always pick summer vacation over school.

But here we are. I do often feel like our kids need more time away from us to have their own experiences and to learn on their own but the end of summer vacation…Ugh. Still feels so lame!

Eighth grade and fifth grade this year. The 8th grade bus stop is at the corner where there’s this big rock where the kids used to stop on bike rides and stand on the rock. That rock doesn’t look so big to them now. They are both starting the last grade in their respective schools. We are at the point in their development where this first day of school milestone is a bit unpleasant for me in what it represents. They aren’t really little anymore. 

I usually feel like I have a good relationship with Time but then it does something sneaky like making me feel like this, unexpectedly, on the first day of school. When we moved into this house, our neighbor had two kids in high school and one in middle school. Now it’s been so many years that all three of them have had enough time to have finished high school and college. When their oldest graduated from high school, I asked him how he was feeling about it. He said, “We’re both ready”. What a great answer. I hope that’s where we are at at that point. 

But right now our kids still seem so little even though they kind of aren’t. I know what I looked like in eighth grade. I can see a photo from the eighth grade semi-formal dance in my head. I look like a baby in that picture but I was about to start high school. In some ways our eighth grader is more grown up than I was but I had spent a lot more time away from home doing my own thing with friends. That’s not all good but you can’t really figure out who you are if you’re hanging around at your parents’ house. 

Just last week I bumped into my fifth grade teacher. I probably hadn’t seen him since I finished fifth grade as I went to a different school the next year. I told him that my youngest was starting fifth grade. That was weird for me. I was with my fifth grade teacher remembering what I was like, what I was feeling and that I didn’t think I was a little kid anymore in fifth grade while I was telling this guy that knew me then that my youngest was starting fifth grade. Time was all spiraled and folding up on me in strange ways in that moment. 

Time is like the ocean tide constantly moving against the shore. High tide, low tide. Sometimes pounding the shore, sometimes gently slipping up and down land’s edge. But no one or no thing is going to stop its flow. In these moments of transition, we have these feelings about the change that’s taking place. About turning one page or maybe even closing one book and starting another. It’s a time to reassess and take notice of what’s already passed. This end of the summer/start of the school year feels ______. Well, it feels something. It feels like it weighs more. Something about the kids being in the last years of their schools and being on the brink of larger changes is making me take notice this time around. 

Walking our fifth grader to the bus stop, we had to walk past that corner with the big rock. As we were passing by, she stopped to stand upon that rock.

The Beach. It’s not for everyone. There are beach people and non-beach people. I am a beach people. I grew up on an island. I don’t even consider myself to be a great swimmer and I don’t surf but I still love the beach. I lived right next to the mountains for years but never felt the same way about them as I feel about the beach. 

A day at the beach is a trip. For real. You gotta pack before you leave for the day. Even if you go alone and keep it simple you still need a towel and sunscreen and maybe a change of clothes at the least. And it’s not much of a stretch to say that when you go to the beach you are going to the wilderness. You are on the borderlands of our civilized world and the wilderness. Once you step into that water, you are out into the wild. And like all good trips, there’s people watching. The beach is so good for people watching. There’s always a lot of people at a good beach in the summer and you’re all near each other and usually there for a while. 

The beach is one of the only places that I don’t mind being surrounded by so many people. Being outside helps. And the noise of the waves drowns out some of the people noise. But the biggest reason that I don’t mind being surrounded by people at the beach is because when people are at the beach, they’re mostly just chilling out. Even if they’re not too good at chilling out or not really beach people they’re at least trying to chill out. Occasionally, someone will play their music too loud or someone’s cigarette smoke will blow my way (hardly ever anymore), but for the most part people at the beach are trying to relax and have a good time.

There are all different kinds of people to be entertained by at the beach. You’ll even find non-beach people at the beach. What do all these people bring to the beach? Do they have an umbrella? Some people have tent-like set ups now. Can they successfully put up their umbrella or will it blow away as the wind comes up later in the afternoon? Towels or chairs? Big chairs or little chairs? Adults of all ages bring body boards now too, not just kids. 

And most of the time people watching doesn’t offer this kind of view of the human body. It’s all out there to be seen at the beach and there are so many different shapes and sizes. It’s not just about the sexiness of all that skin. It’s the variety. There’s so many different looking humans out there. There are really big bodies. The bodies that are big with muscle I can appreciate. I know how much work that takes. But I also like to see people at the beach who are big not because of muscle. If you are overweight and you’re at the beach then I am happy that you are doing your thing and not worrying about someone judging you. Or if you are worried then you are powering through it and doing what you want anyway. Same thing goes for someone who is super skinny. You can’t hide it under your clothes at the beach. Fuck it. I’m happy that you don’t give a fuck and you’re enjoying your love of the beach too.

There’s a lot of variety in beach attire too. Some people wear shirts, even in the water. I saw a guy the other day in the water with a shirt on but it wasn’t a swim shirt. It was a collared polo. I’m an old man now and wear a long sleeved sun shirt when I’m on the beach. Less sun exposure and fewer times that I need to reapply sunscreen. And you knew we were going to mention the thong, right? This has been popular for a little while now. When I was a kid, going to the beach, I almost never saw a thong. Now you can’t turn your head without seeing at least three. There’s a lot of bum hanging out at the beach nowadays. Who doesn’t like a bum in the sun?

Watching people walk barefoot uncomfortably on the hot sand, watching people trying to work their way out into the water against the waves pushing them and as the waves push that cold water higher up to the sensitive spots. So much entertaining human activity. Or how about the bright red, already had too much sun people. Or the bright white people. I hope they put a lot of sunscreen on. Some people exercise at the beach. There’s always people running or jogging along the beach. I’ve always enjoyed taking a walk along the beach but I don’t really want to go for a run if I’m there for a fun beach day. Oh! And the seagulls…they are ruthless and have definitely gotten worse. You’d better keep your food low and your head on a swivel if you want to avoid a seagull taking your food. 

And I haven’t even mentioned the beauty of the beach yet. The fact that it’s never the same because of the waves, tides, and wind. Or that it changes throughout the day while you’re there. Or the way the sun feels on your skin warming you up until you just have to get up and go back into the water to cool off. Or taking that walk that I was talking about just for fun or to do more people watching or to buy some food or better yet to buy a Del’s Lemonade down at the Surfer’s End. Or searching for sea glass or some other memento to take with you from your day at the beach.

I love the beach. I love it year round. I love it with snow on it. But the people watching is a summertime event. There’s usually good dog watching at the beach during the other seasons though.

Summer really starts in late May or early June. It’s a holdover from being a kid when we knew that Summer started when school ended even if that’s not what the calendar says.

I’ve not found the time to sit still and write. I’ve not be sitting still long enough to even follow any of the ideas I’ve had far enough along for them to fully develop. Sometimes time just slides along like slipping on a patch of ice when you’re walking. When we’re in the moment fully, things just happen. And if we’re busy on top of that then we are living and experiencing and there really isn’t any yesterday or tomorrow. Not too long ago, a little girl, I think two years old, was trying to tell a friend and me something about fish. It sounded like it was something she had just done or seen that day. Her mom explained that a couple of weeks ago they went to an aquarium and that’s probably what she was talking about and that sometimes she talks about things like they just happened even if it’s been a few days. That struck me. At that age, she is really only existing in the present. She is going with the flow. So what does yesterday mean to her? That’s how things have felt in this early stretch of the summer. The other night we left my vehicle somewhere and all took our other car where we were going. On the way home, we didn’t stop to get my vehicle. We made it all the way home and when we pulled into the garage my vehicle wasn’t there. Oops. But it didn’t feel like we forgot to get my vehicle. It felt like it wasn’t even the same day when we left it at that parking lot. By the time we got home that night, that one day really felt like three or four different days to me. One thing happened then I flowed into something else and flowed into something else and we just keep cruising along and who even knows what day it is anymore? Just living. It’s easy to do in the summertime. 

Parenting is often misery. I don’t care what you say about how rewarding it can be or “it will get better”. In those moments, and even if you’re not a parent you know what moments I’m talking about, it is pure misery. It’s like a song on repeat. The same thing over and over again and I didn’t like it the first time. Every time I think I’ve grown enough or stretched enough or improved my patience enough, my kids prove me wrong. There is no “enough”. There is no limit that a parent can reach. The extent that kids will push us is limitless. Just when you think you’ve learned something or found a way to stay calm, you will be crushed by your child’s ability to increase the intensity. Children are unintentional spiritual teachers. If we were at a monastery practicing Zen, it would be the same way. Just when you start feeling like you made a breakthrough, the master would throw some heavy koan at you to crush your ego some more. 

My latest analogy to explain to my easily derailed child that we must learn to navigate the little bumps in our road more smoothly: It’s like when you hit a bump while riding your bike. You might get some air, you might wobble and lose your balance, but you usually recover and just keep going without a full-on crash. We don’t crash every time we hit a little bump. We need to learn to stay upright and keep going. And once you get past the bump on your bike, you aren’t turned around looking back at that bump, you’re looking forward to what’s ahead. We’ve gotta do the same thing with the little bumps in our life. Don’t lose your mind over every little bump. And keep looking ahead, stop carrying that little bump with you, it was a mile back and now you’re missing out on what’s coming next.

Been reminded several times recently of how fragile we are. Something usually hurts and just when I realize that nothing has been hurting for a while, I wake up a day or two later with something hurting. Right now I know a handful of people who either need some kind of transplant or who just received one. Someone else last week with an unexpected life-altering hospital stay. We are fragile. This can all disappear in the blink of an eye. If we took the time to reset ourselves regularly and remind ourselves of our fragility, I suspect the things that upset us so much would feel much less upsetting. Perhaps it would even be easier to be decent to each other if we recognized how fragile the person we are interacting with is. We are all easily hurt. Let’s try not to leave a mark. And if we can disappear in an instant then why are we so flustered by nonsense? We waste time complaining about getting wet in the rain storm instead of enjoying the rainbow.

Apparently the way this life works is that we keep getting older not younger. I am so old now that by the time anyone reads this I will have seen one of my closest friends in person for the first time in 23 or 24 years. We were only 18 years old when we met and now it’s been longer than that since we’ve seen each other. I have employees that did not exist the last time we saw each other in person. I am hoping I can embrace the joy in that first moment of seeing my friend and just have a big smile on myself and not embarrass myself by crying.* But it is an emotional thing to see someone after so many years. There are no guarantees and we are fragile. Many loved ones have been buried during that 23 year span. It will be a gift to be in person together again.

The flow of summer, for us, really gets going with the 4th of July celebration. It’s a two week event here. It’s cool to live in such an old part of the country. (And no matter where you stand politically or how much room for critique and even shame or despair there may be in the state of our country right now, it is still worth celebrating the 4th of July together. This country was never really a democracy. Originally, the vote was given to white male landowners. It’s always been elitist. And as long as there is an electoral college to subvert the popular vote, it still won’t be a true democracy. But look around with open eyes and be reminded of how good we have it. Our system is fucked but there is room for change and hope. Many people around the globe don’t have that hope.) The two week celebration reminds me of Senior Week in college. Party, party, party. But it’s not just the partying. It’s the chance to spend so much time with friends. Jobs, schedules, family plans and everything else make it an unusual thing to see friends over and over again so many times in just a few days. There are concerts every night for two weeks, a carnival, fireworks, and a parade. Lots of opportunities to spend time together!

And summertime will just keep rolling us along.

* I did not embarrass myself.

When I’m feeling with the Way

Time is extinct there is only today

To float along as intuition guides

To feel that calmness and enjoy the ride

Life is balanced, woven tight

Seeing hope & potential as I walk toward the light

Action is as action does

Think too long & kill the buzz

The power is in us waiting there

Just let it out and begin to share

The Tao is here for all of us

Give up, let go, love, and trust

On this path you may find the Truth

Abandon your assumptions and keep your youth

I carry my sadness and losses with me always, even on my best days. Last Tuesday was, for me, a superb day. But on Monday, my friend’s father died. He was cool. He had skills. He was a furniture maker. Legit. He probably saved me, at some expense to himself, from hypothermia, in a Colorado September rain storm. On Wednesday, a young man underwent a medical procedure we all hope will save his life. He suffered to get ready for that procedure and he is suffering in recovery from it. 

The events that cause our sorrow are often beyond our control and we can all agree that we wish we didn’t have to experience these things. But sadness gives us perspective to understand what we have. A few months ago, I wrote this note to myself: “The deaths are open wounds not scars. Each one increases the awareness and intensity of every next moment like editing a photo to make the colors more vibrant.” Then a few days ago I came across this article about sadness. The article doubles down on how sadness affects us. Sadness doesn’t just open us up to be more appreciative of the moments we have. Sadness creates a path towards compassion for others.

In our culture there seems to be a trend toward running away from discomfort. Our collective and individual tolerance for discomfort appears to be getting lower. But to live is to feel discomfort. To be able to recognize the difference between a minor discomfort and a more serious injury that requires attention is an important survival skill. Every discomfort is not serious and every discomfort can not be eliminated. Finding the ability to be comfortable with discomfort brings us one large step closer to finding some peace in our lives.

Deep sorrow and grief are real emotions that should not be written off as minor discomforts and should not be buried or hidden from either. Truly feeling grief and sorrow is an essential part of our experience as humans. To feel grief is to be human. It’s not really an exaggeration to state that one has not truly lived until one has grieved. 

But as always there is a balance to be found. In our effort to eliminate discomfort we may be losing our ability not just to deal with small inconveniences as the small things that they are but also losing our ability to deal with real grief, depression, and anxiety in a healthy way. If we explode over every little slight or rush to get medical treatment for every bump, bruise or rash, we are overreacting to these inconveniences. Conversely, if we dive into our depression, anxiety, sorrow and grief, if we wallow in it, we will drown. 

It is normal to feel sad just like it is normal to feel hunger. Feeling hunger does not mean that we are broken or in danger. Feeling sadness also does not mean there is anything “wrong” with us. Sadness is a notification that we care about what or who we lost. Sadness is a reminder that things are not and will not be the same. Just like hunger is resolved by eating, sadness is resolved by living. If we are so caught up in sadness that we feel like we can’t go on or can’t continue to enjoy each new day then we are looking backwards and need to turn our head around to face forward again. If we still live then we continue. We bring our sadness with us and it flavors our new days but we still have new days. The greater appreciation we can achieve for what and who we still have is the gift of sadness.

On a morning this Spring, during the drive to work, I was feeling buzzed from an early morning workout. That’s a strange thing to say and it was a strange sensation to have, while I was sober, early in the morning, but there’s no better way to describe it than to say I felt buzzed. It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be but still cool, wet and misty. The grass was green, with a whiteness almost from the moisture, flowers blooming, birds singing. It was wet and colder than we’d like but there was still so much to enjoy and feel good about. Obstacle/Opportunity. Yin/Yang.

“Power of the Words” was playing on my stereo. So upbeat, sounds so good and it’s about thoughtfulness. 

The obstacle is in our minds. It’s like the old “is the glass half full or half empty?” question. It’s the same fucking glass! Is it an obstacle or an opportunity? The answer to that question is up to us because it’s really the same thing. We get to choose how we see it. Is it another crappy, wet, too cold Spring day or is it another beautiful day to enjoy?

“I can see clearly now” was up next on the playlist. The rain wasn’t quite gone but it was getting there and it was a nice reminder that if we are seeing clearly then we are seeing the opportunities in front of us instead of seeing obstacles.

Some things just suck and are truly awful but if we only see the obstacle then we will be suffering even more the entire time we’re dealing with it. We’re going to suffer as we make our way through shitty situations but we make it worse when we only see the shit. There’s still an opportunity there even in the worst moments.

“Still is still moving to me” is the next song to play. A koan. To me, it’s about meditation. To be still is not always inactive. The same idea about how we perceive things. Can we see beyond the surface and beyond our initial impression or reaction? Can we see around the negativity and find the beauty and the things to be grateful for?

As I continued on my drive, my buzz wore off. When we’re not buzzed, when we’re in the daily grind and we’re presented with challenges, it’s harder to hone in on the opportunities instead of letting our autopilot show us the obstacles. It’s harder to remain upbeat, positive, and kind. Every moment in every day is practice. We are in training. We can train ourselves to be positive in our view of the world. We can train ourselves to shake off the negativity, rudeness, and anger that comes our way and remain true to the vision of the person we are trying to become. We can be positive and kind but it takes an effort. 

Being able to see our reality as a series of opportunities instead of obstacles is almost a koan too. Sometimes we just can not do it even when we’re trying. A few years ago, as I was complaining about something to a friend, he presented me with the reminder that what I was complaining about didn’t have to be an obstacle, it could be an opportunity. I knew what he meant. I understood the words he was speaking, but I just couldn’t turn that corner in my mind. My response was something like, “I understand about looking for opportunities and ways to learn and grow but this is a fucking obstacle!”. 

When we make something an obstacle in our minds, we are definitely not making it easier to overcome. However difficult the situation was already, by labeling it an obstacle, we just made it more difficult. If we can find the opportunity and think about what we can learn and how we can grow, the situation may still be difficult and even unpleasant but our view of it now has some hope. Instead of just looking to get through it we are looking to take something away from it. We are looking to be transformed by it. There is hope and positivity in looking at our struggles as opportunities. Seeing only an obstacle turns that hope into worry, anger, or even despair. 

“Appreciating every moment doesn’t mean pretending that something is good when it isn’t. It’s not about denial or delusion. It’s about training yourself to see the good that actually exists alongside the challenges and to notice the ripple effect of this positive perspective.”         -Frank Lipman MD

What’s happening now? Whatever it is it’s probably not what you’re thinking about. We’re usually thinking about the things we have to do and what we’re going to do today. Or we’re thinking about something that’s already happened that we are still stuck on and still feeling the emotions from even though it’s over. Or maybe we’re worrying or anxious or excited about something that hasn’t happened yet and may not even happen at all. None of that is what’s happening now. 

Part or most of our attention is often directed away from the moment we are living in. Our mind lives in the past that we can’t get back to and the future that is always out of our reach. That seems strange. But it is what it is. If we want to live a more fulfilling life and be more actively engaged in the moment we are experiencing then we have to deal with the fact that, on its own, our mind sucks at staying present. Like Biggie said, “It’s an everyday struggle”. 

It’s not just thinking about things we need to do or forgot to do or any of that line of thought that keeps us from giving the current moment our full attention. That’s pretty straightforward and we can realize, sometimes easily, that we’re doing that. Our emotions are trickier. Our emotions can linger and come along with us from one moment to the next. More than that, our emotions can stick with us and linger for years. That’s harder to pull away from.

Somebody cut you off while you were driving to work. You get to work thirty minutes later and start talking to a coworker and you’re telling the story about how somebody cut you off and you’re cursing that person out. But that shit is over! Past tense. Rearview mirror. No longer real. No longer relevant. Move on! But you’re still feeling it so it seems like it’s still happening. It feels like it’s still the present. 

But a feeling like that is not the present and we are constantly and easily tricked by our mind with these emotions that bleed from one moment to the next. A few posts ago I wrote about the mantra “don’t take it personally”. It’s just a little something that I say to myself when I need to hear it. When I need to snap out of autopilot and take back control of the steering wheel. Here’s another little thing I unexpectedly said to myself the other day that stuck with me. “That was then, this is now.” 

Something happened that annoyed me or made me feel frustrated or whatever. I’m still feeling it even though it’s over. “That was then, this is now”. SNAP. Ok brain, we are moving on and leaving that emotion in the past. I don’t need to keep carrying that emotion along anymore because it’s not doing me any good and it’s creating a filter that I’m seeing the current moment through. It’s like looking through smudged glasses. “That was then, this is now” is a nice little reminder to focus on the moment, let go of the past and clear that filter. Be present in this moment without it being tainted by the emotions I’m still carrying around from a past moment.

That was then, this is now.

The better we get at leaving the past behind us and leaving our emotions that are connected to what has already happened behind us, the better we get at fully living in the moment we are in. To see this moment clearly, we need to be seeing it without the filter of lingering emotions.

P.S. “Now” and time don’t always feel the same to us. It seems to me that when I am more fully awake to the moment I’m in time stretches out somehow. When I look back on the day or the week or whatever, when I’ve been more engaged with those “nows” it still might feel like it went by quickly but it also feels like a lot happened. It feels more packed with memorable moments when I’m really in those moments. Everything about our life is about our perception of it. If we don’t want to feel like our life blew past us then we have to be awake in the moment we are living.

March is the doldrums of the calendar. The holiday season is well past us and the shininess of the New Year is feeling a lot less shiny by the time March rolls around. By the third month of the year, we’re in the grind. It’s like when you get the first scratch or dent on the new car. That’s March. It’s still early in the year, but it’s not new anymore and it’s got some dirt on it. St Patrick’s Day is a fun holiday but that’s not enough to lift up the entire month.

It’s mostly still cold and/or wet. We might get a tease of warm weather but it’s just a tease. There’s still more cold weather ahead. We’re thinking of the warmer weather, thinking of cleaning up the yard and doing new planting. Thinking of doing fun outdoor activities but we’re not really there yet. We still have to keep waiting. We still have to make it through March.

Not quite Winter, not yet Spring. It’s an in-between time. A no man’s land. It’s a grumpy little month of wanting one thing to be over and anxiously awaiting the next thing. 

This March in particular has a heightened sense of not quite one thing but not yet the next thing. This is the third March of the dark times that we call Coronamageddon. A lot of people and government agencies are acting like Covid is over. Mask mandates and other regulations have ended. Money to fund free testing, immunization and treatment for Covid is drying up. More people are out and about and less people wear masks. But Covid isn’t really over. People are still getting Covid. People are still sick and even dying. And many places still require a negative test while traveling (even if you can’t find a place to get a damn test).

Because of where this March lands in the context of Coronamageddon, it’s an even stranger in-between time. I came into 2022 with a bunch of pent up energy. I was determined to do more activities outside of the house this year one way or the other. I want to get out into the world again. Hang out with people again (ok, if I’m being honest, I really only want to hang out with a small, select group of people but they’re people that I don’t live with!). Do things, have new experiences, see new places. 

But the weather hasn’t quite caught up to my desire to do more yet and it remains to be seen if Coronamageddon has finally been subdued enough to really come close to living the way we used to without the fear of death or serious illness. So, it’s the old familiar March feeling. Not wanting to go back to the previous winter months, wanting to enjoy warmer weather but being stuck in between. That stuck, not-quite-sure-where-we’re-at feeling is exaggerated this March. It’s a blah kind of month. 

I’m ready to see what happens in April. To keep moving forward and hopefully finally break through the other side of the Coronamageddon fog that’s been smothering us. 

We forget the lessons that we learn. Constantly. We need to relearn them or at least be reminded of them. Then we must reintegrate the lesson into our lives. Then we forget it again. This is the way of it. The answer is to do something regularly to keep us tuned into these lessons and keep us grounded on the path upon which we are attempting to stride.

“Don’t take it personally” is a good lesson. It’s one that I had forgotten about. I ended 2021 with bitterness. The last few months of the year, I wasn’t just frustrated or even angry; it was worse than that. I was bitter. Fortunately, I had some time at the very end of the year to digest what had been happening and how I had been handled it. I was able to step back enough to evaluate how I was feeling and make the conscious decision that I did not like it. And I did not want to continue it or allow myself to repeat it. 

The things that I was angry about that led to my bitterness had not changed. I chose to change how I felt about those things. Bitterness and anger weren’t changing the things that were bothering me. Bitterness and anger were changing me. 

The biggest tool in making this change was remembering that I should not be taking things personally. Like all good lessons, it is so simple. It’s easy to be fooled by its simplicity. It’s easy to not take it seriously or delve deep enough into what it means because, on the surface, it sounds so obvious. But it’s deep and simple at the same time. 

When someone lashes out at me and raises their voice, speaks rudely or even calls me names, all of those things are under the control of the other person, not me. That anger, rudeness, and name calling are not mine. They are theirs. Because it’s aimed at me and because I have an ego, I feel like it’s about me. I feel hurt or disrespected. But I am choosing that hurt or disrespect. That is the part that’s under my control. 

I could remember that even though the anger is coming at me, it’s not my anger. This is not actually about me. This is about the person who is angry. In that way, I can step aside from the anger. I do not need to be angry because the person talking to me (or at me) is angry. Their anger is their business. 

When I remember that it’s not about me, it creates space and opportunity for other things to happen. It’s easier to find compassion or understanding for this angry person when I’m not feeling angry myself. It creates the internal space to continue to be the person that I am trying to be instead of just being on autopilot. 

Not taking it personally doesn’t just apply to personal interactions. All of us are tired of, frustrated by or angry about Covid by now. We feel the impact on our lives, the limitations, the fears, the fatigue, the divisiveness of it. But it’s not about any one of us. This miserable thing is happening all over the world. Covid is one of the few things that we all have in common (even if we don’t act like it). So Covid sucks and living with it sucks and living with the all the fall out from it sucks. But it doesn’t just suck for me. It’s not about just me. It’s not aimed at me. It’s just out there like the weather or gravity. It’s happening to everyone. 

The same is true for the crap we deal with at work. My employer was the biggest cause of my bitterness last year. But lots of people work for the same company. I’m not alone in dealing with these issues or thinking these thoughts or feeling these feelings. It’s not about me. Remembering to not take it personally, created some distance in how I saw my complaints. When we aren’t taking it personally, we can see it without feeling it. That makes it easier to deal with it. Are my feelings justified or am I overreacting? Is this real? Is it likely to change? What can I do? We can look at the problem and evaluate it without emotion when we stop taking it personally. 

The situation still sucks but I feel calmer about it when it’s not about me. It’s just another thing that’s come up to deal with, it’s not some personal attack. It’s not just some philosophical argument to say “don’t take it personally”. The space created between me and what’s bothering me, by not taking it personally, makes the entire view different.

But I’m going to forget this. I’m going to be on autopilot and just react with emotion to the emotions thrown at me. Or react with emotion to the crappy situation I find myself in. Unless I keep reminding myself, “Don’t take it personally”. So far this year, “Don’t take it personally” has turned into a mantra for me. I’ve been saying it to myself and repeating it to myself when necessary. as often as necessary, to keep myself from sliding back into those old ways of perceiving things and reacting to things. At the end of last year when I was evaluating how I was feeling and handling things and I remembered that I didn’t need to take things personally, I did not intend for that saying to become a mantra. But it works as one. No matter how much I prepare myself and think things through ahead of time, I still find myself on autopilot and reacting to things moment to moment. Reminding myself not to take it personally disrupts the autopilot and resets my trajectory. Instead of just reacting to what’s happening, I can stay on course.

Don’t take it personally. Try it.