She said the same
I put my friend who is selling land in touch with a friend who appraises land. He reported back to me that my friend had called. “She is a real sweetie,” he said. I said, “She said the same thing about you!”
To a friend with chronic illnesses
I am sorry you have to beg off tonight. I was looking forward to seeing you. Alas, I do hope that your spirits remain good in light of your health struggles. I hope you know that you are a shining example for the rest of us with your positivity and focus on the good.
A moment of clarity
It may seem minor, but I had what I consider a breakthrough this week. Monday afternoon, I had a report returned to me with edits from my boss. Three places she wrote “grammar” as a comment pointing to a sentence that had no grammatical error. I had not given her a report that had any grammatical mistakes in it. I am a much more accomplished grammarian than my boss. I took offense that she was calling my work substandard and wondered how to go about sending the drafts back with a “no grammatical error here” comment. I left work for the day.
The next morning, I looked at the report again and decided that I would not make waves. I did not try to correct her errors, but simply rewrote the sentences that she pointed to and sent it back for re-review. The decision brought me immediate relief.
When I don’t struggle, I don’t have conflict. My goal is to remain employed in an adversarial work environment. It doesn’t matter what my boss thinks of me if I can stay confident in my skills and bide my time. I’m getting a lot of practice letting go, and I think I see some progress.
If patience weren’t so easily tried
If patience weren’t so easily tried, it wouldn’t be a virtue. Those were the wise words of a grandmother to her grandson in a novel I am reading and it tickled me so much that it has returned to my mind again and again. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth having.
My impatience is judgment of others (or myself, if I’m, to be honest about it). Regardless of the object of my impatience, my feelings always sprout from my perceptions that things aren’t as I would have them. My impatience is a telltale sign of my lack of acceptance of the way things are.
I’m working on developing patience in impersonal things like other drivers, discourteous strangers, irksome personalities. It starts with my awareness of disquiet in my mind, and when I identify that, I consciously work on self-forgiveness for my patterns of learned behavior that I would like to rid myself of.
Moping about
Today started out feeling like a red-letter day, but as it progressed, I got further and further from practicing the presence of God and found my mind is a simmering cesspool of negativity. The hours are crawling by, and I feel out of sorts for no reason I can name. Nothing is right, and I want to go home and go to bed. I guess human beings have days like this from time to time, but I feel like I’ve wasted time, work and personal time, just being unhappy.
I could write a gratitude list. It would probably help change my attitude, but I don’t feel like it. Maybe I just don’t want to be positive and grateful today. Maybe today serves to remind me of how I could be all of the time if I don’t use the spiritual tools that bring me back to the journey my soul desires.
I have an opportunity to change things today, but I won’t take it. I’m going to wallow in self-pity because I seem to want to. Tomorrow, though, is a new day.