Someone lent me Tuesdays With Morrie a long time ago and I never picked it up. Then I kept hearing about it and finally picked it up again. It’s a great little book, here’s a quote:
‘Everybody knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently,’ Morrie said.
‘So we kid ourselves about death,’ Mitch said.
‘Yes, but there’s a better approach. To know you’re going to die and be prepared for it at any time. That’s better. That way you can be actually be more involved in your life while you’re living. . .
Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, ‘Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?…
The truth is, Mitch, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live…Most of us walk around as if we’re sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully because we’re half asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do…
Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.’”
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change,” Carl Rogers
I found this quote and it reminded me of something else I read – that we’re drawn to the things in other people that we haven’t faced up to in ourselves. That means when somebody bugs the heck out of me, the thing that’s bugging me is the same quality that I’m denying or haven’t fully accepted in myself. Ouch!
Translucent Revolution which I referred to before (yes it takes me forever to get through a book, I’ll probably talk about this book for a year) suggests that when you want to judge someone for something, add on “just like me”. In other words – that person is so rigid and controlling and dorky – hey – just like me.
This little exercise helps start to open up to the possibility that you may have identified something about yourself you haven’t looked at before. And it’s icky, but it’s also a relief. I just did this recently and realized something about myself that was totally icky. Totally Grade 3. And no I’m not talking about it here. But trust me when I say that telling ourselves stories (I’m sweet and loving all the time) is handy, but when it gets down to it honesty is so much more, well, honest. And it’s a great opportunity to exercise compassion.
We always like to set ourselves apart, we’re different, better and more together. But we’re not. And if we really were, we’d be so compassionate it wouldn’t occur to us to judge the other person. So we probably still have work to do.
It seems counter-intuitive right? We think that if there’s something we dislike we should just ignore it and drive it underground and it’ll go away. But the fact is, the dark spots are only dark to us, they’re still driving the people we love nuts. It’s better to coax those places out into the light. Learn to live with them. Figure out how to take them lightly. Prove it by making a little joke. Let our loved ones roll their eyes and joke back without slapping them. It’s only then that we can change.