Unexpected Wisdom

We have one of those one day at a time calendars.  You know the kind that has a saying for each day of the year.  Not surprisingly, it’s a Zen calendar.  A couple of days ago the message was from that well-known master, not of Zen but of the one-liner, W. C. Fields.  Hey, wisdom comes from many directions, right?

I have to say I loved this quote: “My wife drove me to drink - I’m eternally indebted to her.”  Before the feminist and politically correct police pounce, let me explain.  While I am pretty sure that W.C. was making the joke at the expense of his wife, if you take that part out and just look at the meaning, it’s pretty powerful. 

I think that what he was saying was that something negative in his life (wife nagging in his case) actually turned out to be a positive thing (he found something he really enjoyed.)  Think back on your life and see if you can think of something that was really bad as it happened, but then it turned out to be that “silver-lined cloud” or the “blessing in disguise” that we’ve all heard about.   This W.C. Fields quote got me thinking about that and I realize that much more often than not, I’ve experienced that magic happen for me.

Take the time I applied for a position as the head of a department.  In the clarity of hindsight, I know that I applied for the position because it was expected.  I was the senior person in the department, there were few opportunities to advance and this was the only one I possible.  I didn’t get the job, and I will admit I cried some really big tears.  Looking back I realize that it was my ego that cried.  I wasn’t the right person for the job, and more importantly, the job wasn’t right for me either.  It would have been a disaster.  In the words of W.C. “... I am eternally indebted.”

Then, there’s the very recent time when my job was eliminated and I found myself unemployed for the first time in over 30 years.  I shed a few tears over that and, I am sorry yet also grateful to say, many of  my friends also shed some tears on my behalf.  But, being at a different place in my life this time, my tears were smaller and the time to recover much faster than I thought possible. 

Instead of a huge gap where my work had been, I find myself surrounded with family and friends who care about me, whether I am working for money or not.  I find opportunities to learn new things and get involved in activities that interest me.  I have time to plan and execute meals that are fun and supportive of my husband and myself.  And I have time to take on some of the mundane but necessary things to “keep the home fires burning” and relieve some of the burdens so when he comes home, he has more time to relax.  And so do I!

I have reconnected with long-time friends and connected in new and better ways with people from my work life.  I have more time and more energy to give to the things I love to do, like this writing as one example.  

There is a benefit to adding years in your life.  The longer perspective helps you more easily see the fine hand of the Universe guiding circumstances for your greater good, even when at the time they don't feel that way.

It’s our good fortune to be able to see that guidance in time to not only gain comfort but to learn from the situation.  With life experience, the time between something bad happening and understanding that there was something better coming gets shorter and shorter.  So, like Zen Master, W.C, Fields, for those things I did not get, and for those things that were taken away, “I’m eternally indebted.”

Self-Discipline

Perhaps not surprisingly, this is one I’ve put off for a while. I know that the concept is really important for many reasons, but my assessment or perception of how much of it I personally have shifts around.  There are some tasks that I love to do and therefore don’t have much trouble getting myself to take on and complete.  Other tasks as the current popular saying goes, “Not so much.”

Take my morning stretching routine.  Some mornings I do it without a whimper.  Other mornings I have to somewhat force myself to do it and  still other mornings I tell myself I’ll do it later, and later never comes.  So where does discipline come from, and how can I get a larger dose of it when I need it?

In a conversation the other day, the woman I was talking with mentioned the term, “free will” in relationship to her human and spiritual growth path.  Is there a value to freely taking on the difficult tasks and carrying on with them to completion that exercises our free will “muscles” and makes it possible to be more self-disciplined in other tasks and other areas of our lives?

I’m thinking that is probably the case.  Just as using any muscle makes it stronger, and therefore easier to do tasks needing that muscle, so too it must be possible to exercise the “self-discipline” muscle so it works more efficiently and more effectively and more easily.  Then the question I might ask is, if you find that the muscle is so strong it works very easily, then when you use it is it really exercise?  If that is so, might the same thing happen to self-discipline?  Is it possible to get so good at being self-disciplined that it no longer represents self-discipline?   I think I’ll stop this line of thinking before my head explodes. 

I love playing around with concepts like that.  Unfortunately for me, it is very unlikely that I will ever get to a point, at least in this life, where self-discipline is replaced with a habit so strong that it is no longer a discipline at all.

What’s Zen got to do with it?  I’m looking at an old concept with new eyes - beginner eyes - and seeing something different than I have ever seen before.  It's a good thing.  And, by the way...it's good to be back!