Sometimes I feel that whatever I am doing is still not enough.
There is just so much ‘toxic’ in me to purge out – like bad blood.
For example - There is not enough time in the day for me to do what I need to do – or so I keep saying and thinking. And I have been rushing like mad from one thing to another, even doing a few things at the same time. That’s really bad because I usually end screwing up something because I am not concentrating.
So, I asked myself, why am I rushing and for what purpose am I trying to finish up as fast as I could?
On the surface, to everyone watching, I may seem like such a hard-working little bee, doing so much at one go. But on deeper reflection, I realised that my main motive was that I could squeeze out extra few minutes or hours to myself so that I could do absolutely nothing.
I love doing nothing and lying in bed, not moving a muscle!
I don’t have to be sleeping. I just adore lying in bed and doing nothing. That to me, is the highest form of luxury. (You can see what I mean by sloth now, don’t you? Yes, it goes so deep)
This is how bad it is – the point that even if I have to pee, I’d control it until my bladder is like literally yelling, I can’t stand it anymore. Then I’d grumble and growl and drag myself out of bed and finally go to the bathroom.
But the thing is though, once I am out of bed, I do not go back. That is why leaving it is soooo darn difficult.
So, as you can clearly see, my motivation for doing things fast and handling many things at one go is NOT the right motivation. And motivation sets the whole deed. The results will reflect the motivation.
Hence, I will always mess up some things, and be exceptionally late for meetings or appointments, or forget something important. The list goes on and on.
Frankly, I do not even know why I love doing nothing so much.
In fact, I would love it even more if there were no one around and no cars in the streets. Yes, I totally enjoy being isolated and away from everyone else. I do not like being in places that are filled with people, I do not even like talking to people and here I am, baring myself to the world and media is my career!
Yes, deep down inside – I am an anti-social to the core. I cringe every time I have to leave the house, drive my car and face the roads filled with other cars and mad drivers. Then I have to talk to people and care. So exhausting! It went against every natura grain in my body.
Yes, everyone remarks that they will never guess that I am one. Of course, looks can be deceiving at all times.
So, why and how I get myself to do all the things that I can’t naturally stand?
A different motivation is in place. A higher motivation. A spiritual motivation, to be exact.
When it is not about me, I think less about myself.
When I focus outwards, then it becomes for others, about others.
Mind you, it is not every day that I get it right.
But on the days that I get it right, I do feel completely, immensely and deeply happy. Happy that I did something for someone else. Then I realised, I really like making people happy and seeing them happy. It’s a joy that I cannot explain. Definitely a joy that even sex cannot come close – any time, any day.
So, for the anti-social to start caring for others and being concerned about other people’s happiness and peace of mind – there is only one thing I can say about this – it is because I hate pain and suffering. Especially having experienced a fair share of my own. Not that mine is any greater than others. I know for a fact that mine pales in comparison to others, but mine is all internal, in my mind. And I really dread that anyone else, or everyone else would have to feel pain, suffering or any sort of misery. I seriously do not like that.
So, that becomes more important than my own dislikes or my own preferences, and even my own sense of what is luxurious.
It is funny – knowing that the little I do or say has done something for someone truly completes my day.
Now, that is very ironic indeed for this anti-social.
This is my DAY FORTY-EIGHT :-
Weight: 52kg (WOW! FINALLY!)
No. Of Prostrations: 15 (It’s going to eratic, but I will continue to pay forward or make up)
Daily Sadhanas: Check and Done with Death Meditation and Dzambala Mantra.
Physical Exercise: 55 mins
Daily Reflection from "IF NOT NOW, WHEN?" – Here we go. I close my eyes and I picked out page 109.
I think this may be a repeat, but nonetheless most appropriate for what I have been sharing above.
It still amazes me how I pick a page at random and it still comes out something like a teaching, as if to further expound on what I have been discussing - for the audience's benefit.
It is a sign that this book is just so darn GOOD!
It is just packed with wisdom for every single affliction that we humans have and are going through.
Quote from Page 109 for Day Forty-Eight:
“The people who complain, have difficulties, who are bitchy and problematic, the people who don’t transform, and the people who create gossip and problems – forgive them, love them, transform them by your example, and give them hope and courage by your persistence and effort of not giving up. Do not criticize, gossip, talk about them, write about them or say things about them, but in response to their harm, give them benefit.”
Personal Thoughts and Feelings:
I finally discovered and understood the source of my deep-seated anger.
I noticed that in the instance something goes wrong, or when I made a mistake, I will get very furious with myself.
In the past, I would even slap myself – oh yes, literally. I am so enraged at myself for failing to do the most simple of things. And I'd say things like, " Shirley, how can you be so stupid?! Didn't you go to school? You dumb bitch!"
So, if I can react or do respond as such towards myself – can you imagine how I would react to others?
In the very same vein - especially when someone makes a mistake, no matter how innocent or major. Blowing up like a short fuse was as regular with me as the scheduled screenings of movies at the cinemas. Yes, they were all major productions.
I have carried so much anger in me, at myself for so long. And it is really not about other people or what they do. In the end, I found out that I really did not love myself.
In truth, I hated myself – every fibre of me.
I was always most merciless and hardest on myself.
Despite what other people may say or think, but I know, because I know what inner dialogue went on inside me, and how much I ended up hitting myself. I just could not stand myself.
I was not kidding when I wrote in one of my older blog posts that I spawned from a place of self-loathing.
To be more explicit – I believed that I was utterly worthless. Hence, thoughts of suicide came every easy and conveniently so.
I even thought that my life would have been better served to someone else. If I could give my life over to someone else, I was sure he or she would have made a better living out of it, than I ever could.
Pain was my ever constant companion and suicide was like my arm candy.
So, whenever I saw people crumble, cry and fall from Grace – yes, I would also end up judging them very harshly. The coldness and numbness were not an act – they were real. As I was the same way with myself.
What hell I unleashed unto others could never compare to the hell I drowned myself in. If there was a walking HELL on earth, that would be me.
This is when you know you have allowed your thoughts, motivation and deeds to embody all of you. It is no longer a state of mind.
It is a state of being.
It was the most unbearable state of being – not just for me, but also to anyone who comes within my 5 mile radius.
Finally, I saw that there was a fate worse than suicide – it was the living hell that I personified.
Seriously, if I had not met Rinpoche – I would have succeeded in killing myself many times over. And I would probably be the cause of many other people’s suicides too - no doubt.
That’s how a vicious cycle begins.
The very things we do and say, will impact on those around us and then they get ‘infected’ by it and they end up getting ‘sick’ and then, they will start ‘infecting’ others because they are already ‘highly contagious’.
Scary, ya?
Makes you think?
I certainly hope so.
Here, I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes from Rinpoche's SMS teachings. This has come to mean a great deal to me.
"WHEN WE PUSH OURSELVES TO IMPROVE AND NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES, THAT MEANS WE LOVE OURSELVES THE RIGHT WAY AND WE RESPECT OTHERS"
Thank you!
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