Why me?
An essay by Maggie Stevens.
Sometimes we think,
Why me?
Why can't I catch a break?
Why does this always happen to me?
Why do they treat me this way?
I hate it when this happens.
Sometimes we not only think it,
We say it out loud.
No need to raise your hand here,
We've all been there.
There are times when we want to be a different person,
In a different place,
Time,
Or situation.
When I feel this way,
I try to remember the wisdom of Ruth King,
Author and insight meditation teacher.
She says,
It's not perfect,
Personal,
Or permanent.
Now that's a lot of meaning packed into a short sentence.
Let's take a few minutes to break that down.
Not perfect.
I'm not perfect,
And you're not perfect.
We're human.
Perfectionism,
Which is defined as a refusal to accept any standard short of perfection,
Gets in the way of accepting ourselves as we are.
Perfectionism makes us think that we and our efforts are never good enough.
This belief actually stands in the way of our progress and ability to change.
It leaves us with a why bother attitude,
And it's self-defeating.
The often used quote,
Perfection is the enemy of progress,
Points to this contradiction.
Fear of not being perfect makes us less likely to take a chance and try something new.
We fear being judged by others,
And most harshly,
Judged by ourselves.
But the fact is,
We learn from our mistakes.
Thomas Edison,
America's premier inventor,
Shared this belief when he famously said,
I have not failed.
I just found 10,
000 ways that won't work.
Toddlers fall thousands of times before learning to walk and run,
And we consider that learning rather than defeat.
A good mantra to help us combat perfectionism is progress,
Not perfection.
Breathe.
Not personal.
The truck didn't cut you off because the driver didn't like you.
The server didn't get your order mixed up because they wanted to ruin your day.
The long red light doesn't really care about your schedule.
Believe it or not,
None of us are at the center of the universe,
Around whom all the action takes place.
People are motivated by their own causes and conditions.
The truck driver may be late for work.
The server may be worried and distracted by a call they just received from their doctor.
The streetlights are set to an algorithm for optimal traffic flow.
There are reasons that have nothing to do with our perception.
Buddhism states that perception leads to deception.
Our perceptions are clouded by our ignorance and delusions.
We see the world based on our own experiences.
This worldview can become limiting,
Like that of the tiger in the zoo.
She was moved from her small confining cage,
Where she could only pace,
To a much larger natural habitat.
Unfortunately,
She continued to pace the same length as when she was in the cage.
She could not see the new reality before her.
We want things to work the way we want them to work.
We resemble the assessment of Alice Roosevelt Longworth,
Regarding her very famous father,
Teddy Roosevelt.
My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral,
The bride at every wedding,
And the baby at every christening.
Life can become much easier when we stop fighting and accept the reality is just what's happening at the present moment,
Without our commentary.
We do not have to like it,
Just recognize that at the present moment,
This is happening.
A mantra to help us take life less personally is,
Right now,
It's like this.
Breathe.
Finally,
Not permanent.
We are often like young children in our outlook.
We want the good things to last forever,
And we want the bad things to disappear immediately.
We know that things change,
And yet we still want to cling to our likes and push away our dislikes.
Impermanence is a central idea in Buddhism,
Stating that all conditioned existence,
Without exception,
Is transient,
Evanescent,
And inconstant.
Flowers,
Fish,
Fowl,
And family,
We all arise and will pass away.
This fact isn't to make us mournful,
But rather grateful for what we have,
When we have it.
When you wake up in the morning and that sliver of a new moon is hanging in the western sky just before it sets,
That moon won't be there tomorrow when a larger crescent will appear taking its place.
The young grandchild laughing hysterically at his or her own joke will,
In the blink of an eye,
Be asking you for gas money.
The self we see in the mirror will change with each passing year.
If we try to hang on to what is passing,
We miss what is right in front of us.
The Buddhists have a mantra called the impermanence mantra.
All things are impermanent.
They arise and they pass away.
To be in harmony with this truth brings great happiness.
If we can choose to live in the present moment,
We can relax into a contentedness.
This doesn't mean that we give up on improving ourselves or the world around us.
Instead,
We become aware of the present moment.
The writer and teacher Eckhart Tolle states,
With awareness there comes choice,
And so you are able to say,
I allow this moment to be as it is,
And then suddenly,
Where before there was irritation,
There is now a sense of aliveness and peace,
And out of that comes right action.
We can be present and mindful without judgment and use our discernment to do the next right action in front of us.
So the answer to why me is why not?
Thank you for listening to this talk.
I wish you well on your path.
May you be surrounded by metta.
May you be safe and protected.
May you be peaceful and content.
May you be healthy and resilient and may you live with ease.
