I just read this blog from the beginning. Damn. I should read this thing more often!
I had forgotten about my pledge to let go of at least 100 things that are pissing me off during 2010. Damn. The year is more than half over!
There has been (frenetic) activity, however, and so let me run through the list and see what progress I have made toward my goal.
During the First Ten Days of the Year, I let go of:
- My general, overall anger.
- My anger over the karmic mood swing that wiped out all of my hope and happiness.
- My anger over all of the clutter. I hate clutter. Why is there so much of it?
- My bitterness over all of the love and compassion and empathy I poured into the world and the only result is the obduration of my heart.
- My resentment over my choice to not act out but instead act like a lady. For the record, “acting like a lady” is highly overrated.
- My resentment over my choice to (physically) stay where I am. It is time for a disappearing act, time to pack up and move, but instead, I stay. I stay to endure the consequences of both my actions and my personality. I stay to endure the sting of alienation and failure. What kind of masochist have I become? What’s next? Getting married?
- My bitterness that illumination has brought only clarity, not peace of mind.
That was a hell of a 10 days.
What I did not understand when I made my naïve declaration (“…while it may seem like the above should create more, additional, “things,” rest assured, I am letting all of those go, too.”) was that underneath the anger would be grief. Deep deep grief. Grief in direct geometric proportion to the amount of anger held.
While I let go of Anger, Grief held on.
For dear life.
Which is ironic because it made me want to give up on Life.
So, when one is engaged in a constant battle to not do something drastic and permanent, all of the things that used to bother a person simply don’t matter anymore.
For example, giving a God-damned rat’s ass what other people think. There’s just not enough energy for it in the struggle through the day.
Letting this go can lead to the letting go of a tricky form of anger: The anger that comes from trying to do what others want.
I mean, sometimes, you have to do what others want, like at work. I know this can dull the soul; that’s why “Happy Hour” was created. [1]
But, I like paying bills so I choose to subject myself to someone else’s capriciousness for a mostly unreasonable amount of time. There’s some sort of reciprocity.
What I’m talking about is making myself extremely uncomfortable in order to appease someone who would not piss on me if I was on fire. The anger that comes as a result of that choice.
This form of anger is tricky because:
- it can be hard (and painful) figure out who would and who would not piss on one if one were on fire;
- it leads to another, deeper form of anger: the anger at oneself that comes when one realizes one has wasted SO MUCH time and energy on something SO FUTILE; and,
- How many people actually know what they want? Do you know what you want? Exactly.
That last point is even trickier because the day you realize you have performed a ballet in the hope that someone who is not in the theatre will applaud is a very dark and cold day.
The best you can hope for is that it occurs in the middle of summer.
[1] That’s also why Three Martini Lunches were invented. I think we should reinstate this very reasonable practice. Unexpurgated bullshit is so much easier to endure when one is temporarily numb.
I also think Mondays should start at 10 a.m., but I digress.
