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Anywhere is Heaven

At the beach recently I saw a kid wearing a t-shirt that read, “As long as you’re with the right people, anywhere is heaven.” Amen to that.

So much in life depends upon our perspective. And our perspective is heavily influenced by those around us. So, with the right traveling companions, anywhere is heaven.

Surround yourself with the wrong people – negative, critical, controlling, etc. – and you might find you’ve created your own personal hell.

We have a lot of power to create the life we want, through our thinking and our attitude, and by the relationships we choose.

All this is to say that it’s good to surround yourself with the people who make you feel good, and who help you be at your personal best, regardless of the circumstances you, or they, may be facing.

And when it seems like the wrong people are everywhere you turn, sometimes it’s better to just enjoy your own company.

The Long Game

“Karma plays the long game.” – Sara Eckel

A lot of times people in spiritual practice become preoccupied by the idea of karma, and misunderstand it to mean that everyone who behaves selfishly will get their comeuppance in some fashion, while all the wronged parties are watching.

Not so with karma. Because the concept of karma assumes reincarnation and a soul’s lessons over lifetimes, it just means that everything comes out in the wash. In other words, no one gets away with anything, ever.

But this simply means that if we don’t learn a lesson the first time it’s presented, it will continue to be presented to us in various forms until we pass the test.

And, if we can’t understand other people’s perspectives, or viewpoints, we may find opportunities to do so firsthand, in the scheme of things.

But karma’s not really a reward-punishment system, in the strictest sense.

Karma’s just part of the process of earth school. Except that unlike conventional schooling, there’s no scheduled timeframe to complete the lessons.

You’re done when you’re done.

In the meantime, you’re just here to learn.

You have got to be kidding me

My friends know that nothing enrages me like shoveling snow.

Yes, you read that right. It’s entirely irrational.

Recently I told one of my friends how I had to shovel a snow drift at the end of my driveway. Even though it took only a few minutes, I got so angry, I found myself saying at least a few choice words aloud as I did it. I could feel my whole body tensing in anger.  “You have got to be f****** kidding me.”

Yep.

She told me, “You should write about this in your blog.”

My response? “Why? So people will know how crazy I really am?”

She said, “No one really thinks you ever get angry. I’ve never seen you get angry.”

She’s not the first person to suggest that they’d like to see me get angry.

People routinely tell me that they think I must lead a charm-filled, stress-free life.

I assure you that this is both true and not true.

I choose to believe that my life is the way it is for a reason. That the reason is both me, and not me (in other words, it’s bigger than me). Nothing in my life looks the way I planned it. And yet, it’s both more and less than I expected.

Sometimes we tend to label emotions as good or bad. Anger isn’t a bad emotion. It can be harmful when expressed in certain ways, though.

One of my long-time male friends used to sometimes break furniture when the wrong team won the football game.

I always wanted to ask him, “What are you really angry about?”

He lives alone, so I guess if he’s breaking his own furniture maybe he’s not hurting anything (though I suppose it’s also an expensive habit).

As for me, I feel like an inanimate outlet for anger (like, say, a force of nature), while seemingly childish, is basically harmless. As long as I know what I’m really angry about.

I suppose it’s the adult version of a temper tantrum.

It also proves I’m human. (In case there was any doubt.)

Just a number

I recently celebrated another birthday, and it gave me a chance to reflect on the way that we tend to assign certain meaning to milestone birthdays, or to have internalized judgments about who we should be, or what we should be doing, at a certain age or stage in life.

Age is just a number. And yes, 50 is different from 20. But is one better than the other? Not really. There are pleasures to be enjoyed at each stage in life.

We often fall victim to our preconceptions about what a certain number means, since there’s really no hard and fast way of determining of what it means to be a particular age. I’ve known people in their seventies and eighties who were vibrant and active, while I’ve known people much younger who were completely mired in the idea that “it’s all downhill from here…”

It’s only downhill if you think it is.

And since you’re the one writing the story, you can create the landscape any way you like.