WHAT IF I TOLD YOU…

The sound of letting go of the results.

Fear is incapacitating. It drives the car. It makes the decisions. It chooses the fates. It is so very easy for me to know how things are going to turn out because of experiences I have already had. If it happened before it is bound to happen again, right? History repeats? What’s the point of doing something if I know how it is going to turn out and Buddha knows it is not going to turn out well.

Does anybody know how hard that is on an intelligent thinker? It’s mind-boggling that I am able to put thoughts together rationally or complete sentences on some days much less work through the myriad of problems, jobs, challenges, fire-drills and flash floods that the world tends to gift me with. Tied up in a bow none the less…. handed to me with a smile and a knowing malevolence. Give it to Mikey, he’ll eat it.

But then… isn’t that what life is all about? Working our way through the maze? Some days I can navigate that puppy without a hitch. Left then right, then right and right again, left and back, up around the corner and WHAM… I have found my way through and to the other side of all the many things that I am here to accomplish.

Other days I am lost. I carry the shovel and find myself unconsciously digging until there is a hole that I am looking up from dazed and confused as to how the hell I got there in the first place. Funny thing about those holes, however. Look carefully. In every hole that I have ever gotten myself into there was a means to pull myself up. A ladder, some steps, a rope…. a means of obvious and easy escape from a trap that I have undoubtedly built for myself.

So… one might ask… why continue to dig the holes? Hell if I know. I suppose that is why I write these blogs… here is where I find my answers (outside of my journals where I can write about you without you knowing.) It is a known fact that we mere humans can talk ourselves into things and just as easily talk ourselves out of them. I do my schizophrenia much better in written form.

I am a very well adjusted man. I am a thinker. I am smart and I am aware. My human side is built on emotion and experience. I have had many of each. I live in my world sympathizing and empathizing. I abhor injustice but I cannot find myself too embroiled in the anger that is necessary for that side of the human spirit. Perhaps that will be my next glorious step on the path. I do know that when I find myself in fear in places that I have been in fear before there is a reason. It means that I am creating it and it may be time to move myself to different pastures… stop in the path and take that right or left into a new avenue.

Change.

But, then I ask myself. If I change… what will happen to this. Where will that be? How will I be able to that? Who is going to…? So I stop and I decide, instead, that I will plot out the path step by step and decide what the answers will be… even if I am not all that happy with what they may be. Sound familiar? Fear: False evidence appearing real. It stops me from growing and changing. It stunts my moments and stalls my happiness. It isn’t something I would suggest and it is something that we all experience whether we want to admit it or not. Can I stop it? I wouldn’t dream of it. Some of the fear I have experienced has provided me with the most cathartic and amazing breakthroughs in my life.

Right now I am about due for another one.

But fear isn’t how I will get there. Letting GO of the fear is. I am tired of many things to the point of fearing they will not end. By fearing this I am holding on to the results because I am trying desperately to figure out the way that I can manipulate and push them into the model of clay that I see fit for what I would “presume” my best answer.

Historically the best results come from heaving the heavy sigh…. and letting go of the results. Let the chips fall where they may. I walk through my day with the best intention and the promise to be and do my best. The results will happen but they will not be mine to choose. But the process is illuminating and free of the fear that causes the problems in the first place. The brush is already clearing on the path. Somewhere up ahead I will see the turn. I am packed and ready to go… I travel light. Breathing… breathing… sighhhhhhh…

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.