What we have experienced in this year of navigating social distancing and forced isolation is just a glimpse of just about everything we have ever experienced. We get in a situation. We love it or hate it, and then things move on, with or without us. It's simple, yet we love to fight it, question it, tear it to pieces and staple the remnants to the bulletin board in our memory.
One of my big lessons in life is learning to find gratitude and appreciation for the things that don't go the way I would like them to. I can do it. I don't always want to, but I always find a hidden gift if I look hard enough. That's part of why I started this blog - to appreciate the lessons we learn in every experience!
I have a tendency to hold ideals about things in my life. If something inspires me, I jump in enthusiastically without looking what's beneath me. But sooner or later, a little bit of reality starts showing through, whether it's a hobby I love, or a person I thought I had respect for, a job I enjoy, or what I've learned on my spiritual path. I certainly know better. I've been burned enough times. Just read the other blog entries, and that becomes painfully clear! Yet still, I jump.
Lately, I've been faced with a difficult decision. The veneer I've kept polished on some people and situations that have inspired me has started to wear thin. Some of the underlying flaws are beginning to show, and it's not a pretty sight. Many years of enthusiasm, respect, and frankly, blind trust, are starting to show their age, and they aren't wearing well. A teacher of mine warned me about this years ago. He told me that I was caught up in the excitement of what was going on around me, and sooner or later I would see that it isn't what I thought it was. He certainly was right, and I appreciate him all the more for his wisdom.
That doesn't mean I regret what I have experienced. It just means that I have to make a decision to let go of something I have carried a lot of passion about for many years, and more importantly, not take responsibility for other people's [flaws, personalities, arrogance - insert your own trait] that have always been there.
Once I do, I will be open to new opportunities, and new excitement will be revived in things that have otherwise become disappointing. I will still love and respect my path, but when it is time for that path to change, change it must, with me or without me. It may be sad. It might be uncomfortable, and maybe even a little painful. But it is time.
We all reach that time in our life when change is necessary. It's so easy to hold on to what is familiar, even if it isn't serving our highest good. Sometimes we need to open our eyes and see what the choices really are, and what can come of it when we are brave enough to take that first awkward step.
As personal and private as our emotions and experiences can be, we can give ourselves permission to let the people who we love most to be there for us when it happens. Like it or not, they are going through it with us anyway, in some form or another. We are never alone in our challenges!
Do the right thing. Not what you want, but what is right - what serves the highest needs of all concerned. It might be difficult to make that choice, and perhaps even more difficult to take the necessary action, but when you do what's right, it's right. And as they say, "as one door closes, another will open." Always.
Many blessings...