When The World Beats You Down — You Have The Option to Leave
Exercising disengagement from external circumstances
It was the first breath I took all day. I put my jeans and sweater back on. In the locker room at the end of business, I collected my suit and dress shoes, hung them over my arm and for one moment thought,
“Today has given me every slap it could muster. You need to step away. Things will get better in just a moment.”
They did not get better.
I came around the corner nearly running into someone I’d been trying to avoid. Walking awkwardly, suit and shoes in hand, I headed for the door ASAP at such a pace so as to create enough distance between us that it’s reasonable to understand why I wouldn’t hold the door open.
And then run. Why?
Remember in junior high when you’d really embarrassed yourself in front of your friends, walked away, and then remembered that you still had to interact with them next period? And then remember that awkward moment you made eye contact again?
That.
If…
If I’d waited 30 seconds longer in the locker room. If I’d left five minutes earlier. If I didn’t fidget my hands so much in the interview. If I didn’t sweat so much.
If I reread that email one more time so I caught that phrase I missed the first time around. If I plugged in the numbers a second time to double check. If I’d filled up my gas tank last night instead of this morning. If I picked up apples instead of bananas.
If I was able to do one thing differently, none of this would’ve happened.
Control is an illusion.
I had a fortune cookie tonight that said,
If you can shape it in your mind, you will find it in your life.
I don’t want that at all, not one little bit, because the things my mind shapes sometimes are brutal. It rehashes what can’t be changed, litigates repeatedly what can never be determined and tries to categorize what has no measurable value.
Who really cares about the suit bag?
There are times we have to step away from every critic, include our own selves, and let the events pass before us. Exist in the world that exists, and don’t pretend to have any say so.
- Detach. You are not the thoughts you are having. You are not the events that are happening. You are you, and maybe you printed a typo, and maybe you turned the wrong direction in the car. It’s time to breath. Rather than saying, “I’m getting yelled at for this email,” I prefer to take a breath and say, “Joe is yelling about an email. Joe is angry. Joe does not like this email.” Why? Because I’m not an email and I’m not the sending of an email. I’m me. The email will be long forgotten in two hours.
- Engage. “Joe is yelling, but this coffee tastes delicious.” See, Joe has no power over the flavor of my coffee or how comfortable these shoes are. I don’t need to live in Joe’s world. I need to live in mine. It’s completely possible to live in one reality while experiencing another at the same time. This isn’t positive thinking or avoidance. It’s simply existing in the most important reality rather than the most visible one.
So I got in the car, wrote this article on my phone, and drove off.
There’s a noise coming from my wheel bearing.
I’ve fixed it three times this last year…
