The curse of a creative mind
I have a friend whose brother is intellectually challenged. Often my friend remarks that his brother is much more spiritual than him. His intellectually challenged brother does not complicate his relationship with the God of his understanding, his family or others. S loves unconditionally. If his feelings get hurt he lets you know. When one apologies he is usually quick to forgive and move on.
Those of us who are not intellectually challenged are often spiritually challenged. We complicate our relationship with the God of our understanding. We question whether this God is a He, She, It, the universe, the interconnections, love, or love or something. If someone hurts our feelings we often do not lovingly let them know. We stew about it and may get passive aggressive although they do not have the foggiest idea of what is going on. We take the behavior of others personally even though it frequently has nothing to do with us. If heterosexual we assume that every gay or bisexual person desperately wants our body and analyze their friendly motives. If gay or bisexual we worry that our behavior will be misinterpreted. Every person who politically disagrees with us is a potential enemy.
If our spouse is angry or upset we question them about the justification for their anger at us or try to turn it back on them. If our children are acting out we ask them why they are so ungrateful for all the care we give them
We both assume that we possess the power to cause the behavior of others and worry that nothing we do makes a difference. We say we do not care what others think but constantly wonder what others are thinking.
Mercy! It is exhausting to analyze and question everything.
Spiritually I “know” and believe that the all I need to do is to show up, do my best to love unconditionally, accept my humanness and, thus, my strengths and limitations, be accountable, make amends, and laugh a lot. The last seems to me particularly important. Laughing with myself and others and not at myself and others is, for me, a significant part of my spiritual journey. My tendency to over analyze nearly everything is not only exhausting it is the material for good comedy. There are no complicated issues. There are issues or machines like my computer which have many interconnected parts. Yet, each part is simply connected to another part or parts. Together they may work magic, but the whole is simply a bunch of simple parts. Life works best when we focus on taking one simple step after another simple step (or if in a wheelchair, one turn of the wheel after another). While taking that next step I either do so in love – sans expectations – or I hold on to hate, anger, resentments, and doubts. The latter is exhausting and unproductive.
If one hangs around folks working a 12-step recovery program one will often hear someone say, “Keep it simple stupid.” The use of the word stupid is meant to be an affectionate reminder to both the speaker and the listener that doing the next right thing is not complicated.
Keep it simple stupid.
Written September 26, 2018
I have a friend whose brother is intellectually challenged. Often my friend remarks that his brother is much more spiritual than him. His intellectually challenged brother does not complicate his relationship with the God of his understanding, his family or others. S loves unconditionally. If his feelings get hurt he lets you know. When one apologies he is usually quick to forgive and move on.
Those of us who are not intellectually challenged are often spiritually challenged. We complicate our relationship with the God of our understanding. We question whether this God is a He, She, It, the universe, the interconnections, love, or love or something. If someone hurts our feelings we often do not lovingly let them know. We stew about it and may get passive aggressive although they do not have the foggiest idea of what is going on. We take the behavior of others personally even though it frequently has nothing to do with us. If heterosexual we assume that every gay or bisexual person desperately wants our body and analyze their friendly motives. If gay or bisexual we worry that our behavior will be misinterpreted. Every person who politically disagrees with us is a potential enemy.
If our spouse is angry or upset we question them about the justification for their anger at us or try to turn it back on them. If our children are acting out we ask them why they are so ungrateful for all the care we give them
We both assume that we possess the power to cause the behavior of others and worry that nothing we do makes a difference. We say we do not care what others think but constantly wonder what others are thinking.
Mercy! It is exhausting to analyze and question everything.
Spiritually I “know” and believe that the all I need to do is to show up, do my best to love unconditionally, accept my humanness and, thus, my strengths and limitations, be accountable, make amends, and laugh a lot. The last seems to me particularly important. Laughing with myself and others and not at myself and others is, for me, a significant part of my spiritual journey. My tendency to over analyze nearly everything is not only exhausting it is the material for good comedy. There are no complicated issues. There are issues or machines like my computer which have many interconnected parts. Yet, each part is simply connected to another part or parts. Together they may work magic, but the whole is simply a bunch of simple parts. Life works best when we focus on taking one simple step after another simple step (or if in a wheelchair, one turn of the wheel after another). While taking that next step I either do so in love – sans expectations – or I hold on to hate, anger, resentments, and doubts. The latter is exhausting and unproductive.
If one hangs around folks working a 12-step recovery program one will often hear someone say, “Keep it simple stupid.” The use of the word stupid is meant to be an affectionate reminder to both the speaker and the listener that doing the next right thing is not complicated.
Keep it simple stupid.
Written September 26, 2018
RSS Feed