It's About The Experience

I think that I have always tried to control my life. I think when we are under the illusion that we are in control that we somehow feel that we are safe.

Gary's death has brought a great deal of mindfulness to how and why I do things in this world. Every now and again I will read something, just one thing and it shifts my perspective from the chaos that thunders through my mind and has come and gone since I was a teenager. This woman was diagnosed with cancer but they managed to catch it in time. She wrote the following… “a diagnosis changed everything. But I wouldn’t switch places with anyone for the world. Because, while the ride has had its scary moments, I have learned that if I just get in, buckle up and keep my eyes open, I can learn from and even enjoy the roller-coaster ups and downs!”

I want everything in my life to run smoothly. I want it to all fall into place and be perfect and go the way I think it should go. But if you look at nature in general, life is never like that. Babies are born when they are ready to be received, rain falls when the clouds are heavy with moisture, winter follows summer but in it’s own due course. There are hurricanes and tornadoes and torrential rains and then there are days of warm breezes, scorching heat and sultry nights. Sometimes we can predict them, sometimes not. But if I am always trying to control those periods in my life, I miss out on an appreciation of the beauty and the spontaneity in each moment of that experience whether it be the cold winter storm or the hot summer day.

Lately, I have often thought about balance. Roller-coaster ups and downs are just that, they are about balance and gaining perspective. Often my dearest of friends are frustrated in my struggles between what I believe our culture deems appropriate and what I think is right. Traditions, cultural values verses desires and dreams. I always want it my way, want to control the situation so that it works out in my favour. But life is not about getting your own way or being in control for truly we are never in control of most happenings in our life. And really, how often do we get our own way or exactly what we wanted? There is always a consequence to weigh against our needs and wants. We make choices, or choose to go into situations even if our intuition warns us this is not a good idea, because we are curious or want to experience a certain something or maybe just to test fait, because, in the end, it brings some kind of balance or understanding to who we are. The choice either fits into my life, or it does not, this is right for me and this is not. This is a good feeling, this is not, this brings love, this hurts. Unless we are out there to be deliberately nasty to someone, the scorecard all balances when we are tallying it up on our last breath. Some call it Karma; I just think that it is our response to experiences. Each and every one of us respond differently to all experiences each time a choice is made, and that choice is made in accordance to where we happen to be in our evolution, and based on the knowledge we have up to that point in our life.

Not that I think life is a scorecard per say. Life “just is”. But I believe the "is" is about a balance of calm and chaos… beauty and the beast.

I often ask myself why is it so important to figure out why someone does, says, acts, as they do? Why must we always want to know what makes them tick, what is their motive, reasoning, logic behind an action? (Except perhaps those quiries might give us a better understanding of who we are in relation to our environment.) Why can’t we just trust that the experience is just there for the experiencing no matter how that experience makes us feel, or who it brings to us? Can we not, as in the case of the woman whom I wrote about above says, “… learn from and even enjoy the roller-coaster ups and downs!”

What if there is no reason or rhyme to anything in this world except to experience… love, joy, happiness, sadness, frustration, anger, peace, chaos, sorrow, jealousy, compassion, etc… in other words “the experience?

Can it be as simple as that?