Dear Spiritual Companions,
I read something in my morning devotional time. Someone once said, “Something isn’t a problem unless you make it a problem.” I bent down and picked up my socks because that statement knocked them off. Recently my Red Sox lost in the playoffs. All the worry and concern I have put into them winning went for naught. Problem or no problem? Alright most people won’t see the seriousness of this issue unless they take sports seriously. How about this one – my pants seem to be a little tighter around my waist. I do the laundry so I can’t blame it on washing my pants in hot water and them shrinking. Problem or no problem? Again some people may think this is a pretty superficial issue. How about this one – my wife of 43 years was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer. She had a lumpectomy and is almost done with her radiation treatments. Problem or no problem?
We all have problems. at least according to the usual way of defining the challenging events of life as problems. What we do with them is what counts. Take the Red Sox defeat. A pitcher who has not given up one earned run in the previous 27 innings of pitching in the playoffs of previous years, gave up three runs this year which allowed the other team to win. When he walked off the field some of the fans booed him. Obviously they saw what he did as a problem. How often do we boo ourselves when we don’t do things perfectly even though 98% of the time we have? How often do we do the same thing to someone we love because they have not been perfect and their action or inaction has hurt us? Even worse is when someone does something right and gets accused of wrong doing. President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize and people accuse him of not deserving it or receiving it because of some political motive! Obviously it is possible to make a problem out of something that is good. I am fairly sure we have done this to ourselves. In other words this behavior is called “never good enough.” No matter what we do or someone else does we can always find some kind of issue with it. This is definitely finding a problem when there isn’t one. Sort of like my pants fitting a bit tighter than usual.
Now comes the challenging one – the event in our life which is definitely a problem. How can I not see my wife’s cancer as anything but a problem? It has been painful, it has disrupted our lives, it isn’t fair that such a good person has cancer and it has threatened her very existence! All of that is true, but why define it as a problem? Could it not as easily be defined as an opportunity? An opportunity to see how pain does not have the last word. Maybe one can see how it is alright to acknowledge pain and learn how to take care of oneself. We are often very good at taking care of others, but not so good at taking care of ourselves. Or how about an opportunity to see how natural it is to have one’s life disrupted. It happens all of the time. We plan to have a picnic and it rains. We plan to have a wonderful vacation and the weather isn’t right. We plan to have a job go just so and it doesn’t. Disruptions in life happen all the time, so why do we think it so awful when things don’t go the way we planned? The answer is found in the way we expect life to be. When it doesn’t go the way we want it to we can see certain circumstances in life as a problem. Could it possibly be easier to see disruptions as an opportunity to accept life on its terms? I believe we are much less upset with life if we choose the latter, which then allows us to take care of the real opportunity - to learn how to care for ourselves when life doesn’t go the way we planned. If we take this a step further we can see this idea also fits life being unfair. If life being the way we want it to be is our definition of fairness we will find ourselves being unhappy a lot of the time. For example, cancer happens. There is no fairness or unfairness in it. It is what we do with it when it happens to us that counts. Again by not centering on the unfairness of cancer we can now take care of ourselves. It is not easy having cancer. There is the pain, the fears, the reality of life being turned upside down. These are the opportunities that await anyone who has cancer. Contained in this is of course is the possibility of death. From time to time in life we are given opportunities to deal with the end of this life. The older I become the more I see those times as gift. I do not want to go kicking and screaming into the night when I die, but rather peacefully as I make my transition back into full consciousness of God’s Love.
When we accept problems only being problems when we choose them to be we are faced with the ultimate threat – Responsibility! Our life is what we choose it to be. I am talking about our inner responses to outer experiences. No matter what occurs in life, good or bad, we are the only one responsible for how we will deal with it. I can choose to be really upset with the Red Sox losing, my pants being tighter or my wife having cancer or NOT. By staying upset I am running away from being able to respond to what has happened. There is a natural amount of time to be upset depending on our inner needs, but to stay there is running away from responding. Once I have responsibly dealt with my pain. I can say there is always next year for the Sox. I can do something about the tightness of my pants by choosing to change my eating habits or getting bigger sized pants. I can now deal with my feelings and thoughts about my wife’s cancer so that I can be there for her. Those are responsible choices which show me that life isn’t a problem, but rather an opportunity to live a fuller and richer existance. I am not saying this is easy, for it does entail hard inner work. BUT it may be easier than to complain and choose to see life as endless problems where someone else or something else is responsible for my life. To give our power away is to give our life away.
What do you think?
Gary