Here you are,
Taking this time to settle by pausing and breathing,
Letting go of outside and turning in.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
My daughter was an incredibly easy child to raise.
In her whole 18 years at home,
She maybe got sent to her room three times,
And that might be stretching it.
That said,
There is one thing that my daughter would do that would drive me up the wall.
I would say something,
And she would roll her eyes at me.
Oh my God,
Just thinking about it now makes me feel like Elmer Fudd,
With the steam coming out of my ears.
Inhale.
Exhale.
This is ironic,
Because I was a master eye roller with my own mother.
Thanks,
Karma.
I've been thinking about this habit of hers and mine recently,
Because I've become aware of another habit of mine.
I am constantly muttering,
Whatever.
Now that I've become aware of it,
I can't believe how often I say it,
And so I got curious.
Why do I say it so often?
When exactly do I say it?
What purpose does it serve?
I realized I say whatever when I've said or done something that I regret,
Or when I've half-asked something,
Or when I've made a choice that I know is gonna have negative consequences down the road.
It's fair to say I employ whatever when my best self has not shown up.
Do you ever say it?
Do you ever say whatever when you care deeply about something and get disappointed?
Do you ever whisper it when you've made yourself vulnerable and been met with crickets?
Maybe you say whatever when you've tried your hardest,
Believed the most in yourself,
And still failed.
Maybe you say it when you want to fight back against life and the hand you've been dealt,
Or when you want others to answer for what they've done,
But you know it would do no good.
Inhale.
Exhale.
My good friend the OED says that whatever suggests a speaker's reluctance to engage or argue,
So it implies a passive acceptance,
An indifference,
A giving up.
Much like with the eye roll,
Whatever often comes down to a lack of agency or control.
When a person screws up,
When you dare to be vulnerable,
When you try and fail,
When you get knocked down,
It hurts like hell.
I hate feeling like that,
And maybe you do too,
So whatever becomes an anesthetic numbing us to that pain.
Inhale.
Exhale.
You might have your own equivalent to whatever.
A close runner-up would be,
It is what it is.
But what do we lose though by resorting to passive acceptance,
By pushing that pain away?
What happens if you pause and breathe into that vexation,
That pain,
That uncertainty and say,
Hey,
I see you,
Here you are again.
What can I learn right here,
Right now?
Maybe what you can learn is that trying or being vulnerable is good in and of itself,
Regardless of whether you fail or feel exposed or not.
Maybe it's that you need to remember you can only control your own thoughts and actions.
Everything else is out of your control.
And maybe it's that we are all human.
So there will be hurts.
There will be messes.
There will be heartaches.
Inhale.
Exhale.
So many things can shake your gumption,
Your mojo.
Some we do to ourselves,
Others get done to us.
If using whatever or some other equivalent helps you to survive,
Then go for it.
And yet meeting those moments with curiosity can bring a sense of possibility.
And they can also bring a sense of power.
Here you are facing your ups and downs of your life with active interest,
Learning what you can.
Hey,
What's going on here?
What am I really feeling?
And then moving on from there.
Whatever you choose to do,
This is your chance to inhale,
To exhale,
To get curious,
To shine.
To become a Bull of Light!
