Musings...
It's been a while. Adjusting to new life, it's mostly going well. Starting to feel like I'm riding on an even keel now, even if I do have days where all the bad feelings from the last place come back to haunt me, usually for no good reason. Working on learning to trust co-workers again.
I've been thinking a lot about negativity the last several months. It's everywhere. In the media definitely, and we all learn to speak in negative from that and from each other. And for what? What good does negativity do oneself? None. It rots you from within, makes you a hollow, bitter, empty shell. But we as a society seem to be so trained, like sheep we follow the negativity thought process, creating not only hollow, bitter, empty people, but a hollow, bitter, empty humanity. No wonder we're such an unhappy society! We're crouched in the attack position, constantly waiting for the next opportunity to eviscerate someone, because that's the only way we know anymore to experience some sort of satisfaction... and it's so juvenile, not to mention self-destructive as well as destructive to others. What is it all for? We sit and wonder why we're so unhappy with life, while we continue to feed ourselves on the negativity that is in its turn consuming us. And I'm not talking about depression, I'm not speaking about a chemical imbalance in the brain... that is what follows a lifestyle of negative living, not a cause or an excuse. It's a result of soul starvation.
Here's the way I see it, and yes it's a bit Buddhist of me, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense to me anyway. Visualize two buckets that each of us carry with us all the time. One is marked with a plus, and one with a minus. Both buckets are full to the brim with sand. The bucket with the plus sign holds the sand that symbolizes the positive energy that we can give and receive, the bucket with the minus sign holds the sand that symbolizes the negative energy we can give and receive. Now to begin with, both buckets are full, and no more energy can be received, positive or negative. Sometimes we try to live like that, neutral, neither giving nor receiving, but it's difficult to maintain. Eventually we are going to scoop out sand from one of those two buckets, and throw it out to the universe. Here's where our own choice comes in. We choose to scoop out the negative sand or the positive sand to throw to the universe. That is entirely our choice. Even if we are mad at someone, if they have been heinous and cruel, we have the choice to respond with negative energy or positive energy. I'm not saying there is any inherent good or bad in choosing one over the other. What we have to remember in this scenario is that we can only receive that which we have room for! So if one chooses to constantly dole out negative sand, the only bucket that has room to receive back sand from the universe is the negative bucket, therefore only negative sand will come back to you. If you choose to give out some of both, you will receive some of both back from the universe. If you dole out more positive than negative sand, than you will receive more positive than negative back from the universe. Kind of like those electrons in chemestry class, remember those? They only received back what they lost or gave away.
This occurred to me when I was, well, recovering after quitting my last job. It occurred to me that, regardless of the job that very nearly killed me, and I'm being literal here, I had still had a choice to send back out the positive or the negative. I was trained in a way by circumstances to respond to negative with more negative, and it was well on the way to creating a completely hollow, bitter, soulless person. The way I saw it last August, I had two choices, quit or die. Scary as it was, I chose quit. And I slowly started to heal, as I began to take care of myself, both emotionally and physically. To actually give a shit about myself. And I told myself too, that if Shiva could trust me as she did in her final days, in her final moments of life that had become so painful for her, if she could trust me and love me right up to the end of her life, and I could receive that love and positive energy back from her, that I must be more than I had become. And there is the other choice that I realized one has to make. I was giving out both positive and negative energy, but the problem was I was not acknowledging much of the positive I was receiving back. I thoughtlessly tossed it aside, because I was focused solely on the negative that I was receiving, and how unfair and cruel it was. And what good was it doing me? It was killing me! It was disabling me from participating in life, participating in joy. I could not let my soul be revived by simple pleasures, I could not enjoy the ride anymore because I was too busy focusing on some unknown destination. The grass was greener somewhere else, and I was angry because I wasn't there, regardless of how green the grass may have been where I was. I refused to see it.
I don't expect perfection from myself. I don't set myself up for disappointment and expect perfection from others either. Negativity will always exist, for dark to exist light must exist. For good to exist evil must exist. Yin and Yang. But I am cognizant, and I am careful, and I am always trying to be aware of what I am giving out to the universe, to the people around me, even if I do not know or even speak to them. I am still going to send energy to them. And I will do my best to ensure that it is positive energy that I am sending, even if I don't know them, even if they don't want it, even if they do not deserve it. Because I can only receive that which I have given away.
I've been thinking a lot about negativity the last several months. It's everywhere. In the media definitely, and we all learn to speak in negative from that and from each other. And for what? What good does negativity do oneself? None. It rots you from within, makes you a hollow, bitter, empty shell. But we as a society seem to be so trained, like sheep we follow the negativity thought process, creating not only hollow, bitter, empty people, but a hollow, bitter, empty humanity. No wonder we're such an unhappy society! We're crouched in the attack position, constantly waiting for the next opportunity to eviscerate someone, because that's the only way we know anymore to experience some sort of satisfaction... and it's so juvenile, not to mention self-destructive as well as destructive to others. What is it all for? We sit and wonder why we're so unhappy with life, while we continue to feed ourselves on the negativity that is in its turn consuming us. And I'm not talking about depression, I'm not speaking about a chemical imbalance in the brain... that is what follows a lifestyle of negative living, not a cause or an excuse. It's a result of soul starvation.
Here's the way I see it, and yes it's a bit Buddhist of me, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense to me anyway. Visualize two buckets that each of us carry with us all the time. One is marked with a plus, and one with a minus. Both buckets are full to the brim with sand. The bucket with the plus sign holds the sand that symbolizes the positive energy that we can give and receive, the bucket with the minus sign holds the sand that symbolizes the negative energy we can give and receive. Now to begin with, both buckets are full, and no more energy can be received, positive or negative. Sometimes we try to live like that, neutral, neither giving nor receiving, but it's difficult to maintain. Eventually we are going to scoop out sand from one of those two buckets, and throw it out to the universe. Here's where our own choice comes in. We choose to scoop out the negative sand or the positive sand to throw to the universe. That is entirely our choice. Even if we are mad at someone, if they have been heinous and cruel, we have the choice to respond with negative energy or positive energy. I'm not saying there is any inherent good or bad in choosing one over the other. What we have to remember in this scenario is that we can only receive that which we have room for! So if one chooses to constantly dole out negative sand, the only bucket that has room to receive back sand from the universe is the negative bucket, therefore only negative sand will come back to you. If you choose to give out some of both, you will receive some of both back from the universe. If you dole out more positive than negative sand, than you will receive more positive than negative back from the universe. Kind of like those electrons in chemestry class, remember those? They only received back what they lost or gave away.
This occurred to me when I was, well, recovering after quitting my last job. It occurred to me that, regardless of the job that very nearly killed me, and I'm being literal here, I had still had a choice to send back out the positive or the negative. I was trained in a way by circumstances to respond to negative with more negative, and it was well on the way to creating a completely hollow, bitter, soulless person. The way I saw it last August, I had two choices, quit or die. Scary as it was, I chose quit. And I slowly started to heal, as I began to take care of myself, both emotionally and physically. To actually give a shit about myself. And I told myself too, that if Shiva could trust me as she did in her final days, in her final moments of life that had become so painful for her, if she could trust me and love me right up to the end of her life, and I could receive that love and positive energy back from her, that I must be more than I had become. And there is the other choice that I realized one has to make. I was giving out both positive and negative energy, but the problem was I was not acknowledging much of the positive I was receiving back. I thoughtlessly tossed it aside, because I was focused solely on the negative that I was receiving, and how unfair and cruel it was. And what good was it doing me? It was killing me! It was disabling me from participating in life, participating in joy. I could not let my soul be revived by simple pleasures, I could not enjoy the ride anymore because I was too busy focusing on some unknown destination. The grass was greener somewhere else, and I was angry because I wasn't there, regardless of how green the grass may have been where I was. I refused to see it.
I don't expect perfection from myself. I don't set myself up for disappointment and expect perfection from others either. Negativity will always exist, for dark to exist light must exist. For good to exist evil must exist. Yin and Yang. But I am cognizant, and I am careful, and I am always trying to be aware of what I am giving out to the universe, to the people around me, even if I do not know or even speak to them. I am still going to send energy to them. And I will do my best to ensure that it is positive energy that I am sending, even if I don't know them, even if they don't want it, even if they do not deserve it. Because I can only receive that which I have given away.