Patience or Apathy?
Sep. 26th, 2011 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
Perhaps the greatest challenge, once fully awake, is to drop all reaching and simply open like a clam waiting in the deep until life in all its guises floods through the half-closed center that is us.
As a younger person, (and certainly as a little girl), I used to have all of these 'plans' and things – often nothing earth shattering, just... I would go through life saying, for example, ...and tomorrow, such and such will happened, and then after that we'll... and then on Friday, and on the weekend we'll... and so on... and I would go after these things – actively pursue these things that were, in my view of the future, dead certainties to happen...
Imagine my youthful surprise and disappointment on the occasions those things didn't happen. And as a younger person, I dealt even less well with disappointment than I do as an adult. I would get horribly emotional, temper tantrums all around and just get very hurt. As a defence I learned to stop. Stop planning; stop imagining... stop pursuing.... Learn patience.
I learned there was only so much I could do. That once I had done my part to set in motion the things that I was hoping for (unless 'my part' was one of those ongoing things, like study – work... etc), that all I could do was wait – like waiting for a seed I had planted to grow. It wasn't easy to learn such patience... but I had thought that I had done so really well...
Until I came to realise that sometimes, this patience, this sense of the 'dropping of reaching' was being perceived as apathy – that sometimes, people would interpret my waiting as 'not caring.' Then I started to worry...and in being troubled, the patience I had worked so hard to cultivate fractured and I became brittle and bad tempered in my waiting; miserable and mardy if things do not go my way... and I don't like that aspect of me, because it makes me selfish. It makes me focus only on me.
What I need to do is to find a balance between patience and action; between waiting and reaching, between knowing that it's okay to give someone a gentle prod every now and then, or query if they are ready for x or y, instead of waiting for some kind of sign that they are, so that what was said, is done in timely fashion.
I need this because I don't like being told that I don't care when I do. I don't like to be interpreted as not wanting to do something, when I do and was just waiting for the right moment. What started as a defence or strategy against a part of me that was ultimately self destructive, has become a kind of self harm in and of itself... in which case surely it's time to find another way. Only thing is: I don't know any other way.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and erroneous views
will disappear by themselves.
--Seng-ts'an
Perhaps the greatest challenge, once fully awake, is to drop all reaching and simply open like a clam waiting in the deep until life in all its guises floods through the half-closed center that is us.
As a younger person, (and certainly as a little girl), I used to have all of these 'plans' and things – often nothing earth shattering, just... I would go through life saying, for example, ...and tomorrow, such and such will happened, and then after that we'll... and then on Friday, and on the weekend we'll... and so on... and I would go after these things – actively pursue these things that were, in my view of the future, dead certainties to happen...
Imagine my youthful surprise and disappointment on the occasions those things didn't happen. And as a younger person, I dealt even less well with disappointment than I do as an adult. I would get horribly emotional, temper tantrums all around and just get very hurt. As a defence I learned to stop. Stop planning; stop imagining... stop pursuing.... Learn patience.
I learned there was only so much I could do. That once I had done my part to set in motion the things that I was hoping for (unless 'my part' was one of those ongoing things, like study – work... etc), that all I could do was wait – like waiting for a seed I had planted to grow. It wasn't easy to learn such patience... but I had thought that I had done so really well...
Until I came to realise that sometimes, this patience, this sense of the 'dropping of reaching' was being perceived as apathy – that sometimes, people would interpret my waiting as 'not caring.' Then I started to worry...and in being troubled, the patience I had worked so hard to cultivate fractured and I became brittle and bad tempered in my waiting; miserable and mardy if things do not go my way... and I don't like that aspect of me, because it makes me selfish. It makes me focus only on me.
What I need to do is to find a balance between patience and action; between waiting and reaching, between knowing that it's okay to give someone a gentle prod every now and then, or query if they are ready for x or y, instead of waiting for some kind of sign that they are, so that what was said, is done in timely fashion.
I need this because I don't like being told that I don't care when I do. I don't like to be interpreted as not wanting to do something, when I do and was just waiting for the right moment. What started as a defence or strategy against a part of me that was ultimately self destructive, has become a kind of self harm in and of itself... in which case surely it's time to find another way. Only thing is: I don't know any other way.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-26 01:39 pm (UTC)It's not always easy.
For my, it is really easy to get apathetic and say I'm being patient. I find that the apathy kicks in when I'm frustrated about the outcomes, or lack of them, and so I do nothing and say "I'm waiting." Rather than at least researching a new way to do something. That happens a LOT when I am frustrated with lack of response from my writing.
Just some thoughts. Good luck on your own path.