Renewal Forty-Two : Confusing Our Mission

Though settled down, I still have been thinking about my second love’s comments on Monday, and about her influence on my former lady friend. My ex-girl friend’s comments a few weeks back about my control over her had the second woman’s stamp all over it.

This second woman recently commented about developing a spine about five years ago (when we broke up). That’s a direct charge that she finally developed the wherewithal to let our relationship go. That’s a major joke considering all of the obsessing she did about it afterwards (she owns that off and on). And it’s a major joke considering how she has still been gathering the male as a human knick-knack (something she also has owned off and on).

She knows that my recent lover and I will not be getting back together and I even think she has been helping the division along (though I’m only speculating, possessing absolutely no facts in the matter). After all, it seems to me that my former girl friend has had to make up all kinds of stories to cover her hind end on this break up. Her morals, values, and ethics are not the same as mine at all, but she spent the time we were together arguing that they were. She clearly, behaviorally demonstrated that they were not. So I think she would welcome support that would identify me as the culprit. Of course her behavior is not inherently the problem, she can have her ways–the problem was that misfiling syndrome again. However, my system of values, morals, and ethics are not the be-all and end-all of the issue. And, I’ve certainly had to learn a thing or two.

In any case, at least as I see it, the real problem with these three women is that they claimed to be someone they were not, and then when it fell apart, they had the audacity to blame me. That is going too far, and that I will not be quiet about (uh, have not been quiet about). This attempt to make me the bad guy is so pervasive and so adolescent and such an obvious attempt to avoid looking at their own responsibilities, that it is clearly a defensive mechanism. This has made it impossible to even be friends (though my second love and I have attempted to be at least that–then she pops up with this latest, pretend-to-be-innocent junk). My recent ex-lover has so completely lost it in her blaming me that we will not be on friendly terms anytime in the near future, if at all. And I admit that this bothers me. I like everybody to be okay, I like to fix it so that they are. It is a major challenge for me to leave it alone, though it is not good for me to listen to the continued insistence that I’m the root of the problem, which means it’s not good for me to be around any of the three of them.

I did a research project at one time based on the idea that some kinds of irrelevant information are actually relevant. For instance, the color of skin is irrelevant in the hiring process. But if we follow government guidelines we are supposed to ignore skin color. This doesn’t work because continually ignoring something simply creates ignorance. So, the thought was to have people deliberately remember that the color of skin is unimportant. This attention to irrelevant information as a constant reminder that it was irrelevant would steer people away from considering it, even if they didn’t like it. And many of the subjects in the research didn’t like it, but they did it and they wound up choosing the person who was actually the top candidate. Other groups of subjects did not do that, even ones trained to attend to the relevant attributes of the job and ignore all the other data (the “job” was for a police officer).

Admittedly, ignoring something in the short-term can have its benefits (avoidance can be a great short-term coping strategy), but failure to give attention to something in the long term will result in that something not having received much energy. This can produce a failure-to-thrive something, a something that can be very resentful and angry and demand a lot of attention, no matter what kind of attention it is. In some cases, such as bad ideas or negative energy, perhaps atrophy is a good thing. In other cases, that’s a problem and will eventually require some attention on somebody’s part.

When it comes to people or things we profess to care about, it seems to me that it is best to give attention up front, get the something or someone to not only survive, but to thrive. If it doesn’t want to or can’t, then all that can be accomplished has been accomplished and at that point it can be realized that one has contributed as best as they can. That means the freedom to allow–to be responsible to, but not for someone. It is clean.

Now this doesn’t mean that the energy is given conditionally; for instance, energy is only given if someone will be what others want them to be. The energy is given to help people be what they want to be, as long as they at least attempt to follow the general rule about positive energy (offers all, asks to be shared, makes no bargain). If a group or an individual is into negative energy, then, unless it’s absolutely necessary (good luck figuring that out), nothing is done, it is simply allowed (not tolerated, which can be an energy drag). In either case, the rest of us are not in the way.

All right, big words, tough deeds.

Still, this is what I followed, and mostly succeeded in, since I was 25. There were big problems along the way, major screw-ups for which I have to be held accountable. But, even if it was not pretty, I mostly followed those rules.

I thought.

Apparently, I’m still fighting with the allowing part a bit.

When we screw up, there is a residual, a fingerprint. And that is where I find myself. I’m obviously still in a mess of my own making, creating a problem by resenting these three women for not accepting the help they claimed they wanted. However humble I approached the problem, I eventually still came across as self-righteous. And it is true that just because someone claims to want help doesn’t necessarily mean they do. And furthermore, I may know a way, but that doesn’t mean I know the way. Each of us has our own path to ourselves and others.

This is also as old as dirt.

So, not being enlightened, or able to walk on water, or make water into wine, or sit peacefully under the Bodhi Tree, I’m left with a combination of laughing at myself, being ticked about the mess I’m involved in, and attempting to learn to let it go, even while not putting up with false accusations.

The overall best plan? Go to another plane, take another road, and don’t come back here again.

Big words, tough deeds, again, and another want.

When I get it, I realize that new path, that new geography, that place with the woman and the work and the land and house and children and grandchildren laughing and my beautiful life and my beautiful death have always been right here in front of me, waiting for me to allow it to be.

Sometimes, in the midst of promises and longing, I guess we forget what our real mission is.