(no subject)
Whatever's happening to me, I am grateful for.
o
If you told me a year ago that I'd be back at my part-time, minimum wage, movie theater job, I don't know how I'd react. It would definitely not be what I wanted to hear, though.
But I am back. It's like I never left. I still remember how to do everything. I knew I would. I could feel the muscle memory ingrained down to the fibers of my fingertips and the tip of my tongue. A customer among many customers during a very busy day told me without my asking that 'this line is really moving.' It was my first time selling in a year.
I am the product of five off-and-on years of working there. It's not glamorous, and anyone can do it, really. The high turnover rate suggests most people don't want to do it. I didn't. But I go to work now and I don't bitch, I just work. I don't complain, I just work. I don't drag my cross around anymore. Actually, I'm not sure where I left it. It can stay where it is.
A year ago, I thought 'I'm better than this job,' and quit.
I got a better job and thought 'I'm better than this job,' and quit.
I came back to the first job because I realized, 'I not too good for this job, and I'm not too good for this money.'
Actually, I'd probably not be bothered to disrupt my vagabond journey into spiritual and creative development and discovery if it weren't for my mother's constant reminders of bills, anxiety over bills, and anxiety over my being able to help her pay those bills.
(This makes me worried. The older I get, the more she seems to allow herself to feel helpless without my aid. This may sound cruel. But there's something very disturbing to me about my mother becoming increasingly dependent on me when she's been very independent most of our lives. Now I'm worried my family won't be able to survive without me if I leave the country or move out, and even wanting to do so makes me feel guilty.)
o
The other day I spent a whole shift going between theaters cleaning up the trash the audience left behind, cleaning up the piles of garbage in the garbage cans, and constantly forgetting that the horrible smell I kept smelling was because I was constantly in front of piles of garbage.
I used to hate this incredibly. 'I'm too good for picking up garbage.' I was insulted even at the idea of it. I felt I deserved better because I had spent four years earning a college degree that signaled that I was entitled to better. This made me hate my job even more.
But that day a few days ago, I did not think about anything but exactly what I was doing. I did not think 'college, college.' I did not think 'minimum wage, minimum wage.' I did not think 'I should not have to be doing this.'
I simply did my job.
I did not judge it or quantify it or anything. My only thought and only desire in the world, for those few moments, were to get the job done quick and get the job done right.
And I realized I was cured of my entitlement.
I don't pretend that I love picking up the half-finished soda and popcorn of the same people who complain it's too expensive in the first place, nor getting a whiff of the smell of the garbage bags in the trash compactor -- but I don't hate it anymore, and that's the whole thing for me.
Hate takes a lot of energy. That energy is consciously given. I decide to hate. People, things, situations. It is a monster made of thought, and I feed it. And I really the only one who suffers.
I picked the garbage up, or bagged it, or swept it, and left it where it belonged: the garbage.
There's a koan about a monk who lets a woman ride him piggy back over a river; a few days later, his junior says he can't believe the monk carried her like that; the monk says, I carried her a few moments, you've been carrying her for days.
I did not carry the garbage with me.
o
College was really the first place I encountered seemingly psychologically unwell people who seemed to not know how to stop talking. Neither stop talking nor discern the listener's interest in talking, talking to them, or about a certain topic.
They were a constant, desperate flow of chatter. They spoke about anything to anyone, and you'd wonder how they ever got to sleep. Unfortunately, they suffer a large share of rejection and cold shoulders. We don't understand them, we don't want to listen to them, so we ignore them. Eventually, you don't even give it a second thought.
I think the mind is like one of those people, but because it's in my head, I don't ignore it. I listen to every single word, usually, and accept the constant flow of chatter as 'me.' When I began to meditate, and I was trying to focus on my breathing, eventually I began to realize my mind would go right on talking without my involvement.
It was a shocking thing and one of the most important moments in my life.
The movie theater has been a sort of proving grounds for me. This place that I had been filling myself up with venom for, used to think only of the things that I'd hated: I would either have to return to that, or take a new approach. I think I've found it.
I'd always associated with the chatter in my mind. It seems natural to. It is natural to. But it left me entirely at the whim of whatever predominant thinking was going on in my mind.
I mean by 'associating' that my mind would go off on whichever direction it was going, and I would associate with it by saying, Yes, this is what I'm thinking, yes, this is how I feel.
But that's not directed thought -- it's reflexive thought. And I think the difference between the two is very important.
During the time I meditated and saw that my thoughts were still going on without my involvement, I also began to find out that I can redirect my thoughts. And recently I began to learn I can dissociate, focus just on what I'm doing, and not have to suffer the reflexive thoughts that might keep me weighed down in agony.
What all that means is: I don't manipulate my reflexive, subconscious thought, but that I instead can give it little attention and little encouragement to continue; I can now consciously focus on things I'd rather think about and consciously lift my mood.
And all that means I am in a better state than I was a year ago.
o
If you told me a year ago that I'd be back at my part-time, minimum wage, movie theater job, I don't know how I'd react. It would definitely not be what I wanted to hear, though.
But I am back. It's like I never left. I still remember how to do everything. I knew I would. I could feel the muscle memory ingrained down to the fibers of my fingertips and the tip of my tongue. A customer among many customers during a very busy day told me without my asking that 'this line is really moving.' It was my first time selling in a year.
I am the product of five off-and-on years of working there. It's not glamorous, and anyone can do it, really. The high turnover rate suggests most people don't want to do it. I didn't. But I go to work now and I don't bitch, I just work. I don't complain, I just work. I don't drag my cross around anymore. Actually, I'm not sure where I left it. It can stay where it is.
A year ago, I thought 'I'm better than this job,' and quit.
I got a better job and thought 'I'm better than this job,' and quit.
I came back to the first job because I realized, 'I not too good for this job, and I'm not too good for this money.'
Actually, I'd probably not be bothered to disrupt my vagabond journey into spiritual and creative development and discovery if it weren't for my mother's constant reminders of bills, anxiety over bills, and anxiety over my being able to help her pay those bills.
(This makes me worried. The older I get, the more she seems to allow herself to feel helpless without my aid. This may sound cruel. But there's something very disturbing to me about my mother becoming increasingly dependent on me when she's been very independent most of our lives. Now I'm worried my family won't be able to survive without me if I leave the country or move out, and even wanting to do so makes me feel guilty.)
o
The other day I spent a whole shift going between theaters cleaning up the trash the audience left behind, cleaning up the piles of garbage in the garbage cans, and constantly forgetting that the horrible smell I kept smelling was because I was constantly in front of piles of garbage.
I used to hate this incredibly. 'I'm too good for picking up garbage.' I was insulted even at the idea of it. I felt I deserved better because I had spent four years earning a college degree that signaled that I was entitled to better. This made me hate my job even more.
But that day a few days ago, I did not think about anything but exactly what I was doing. I did not think 'college, college.' I did not think 'minimum wage, minimum wage.' I did not think 'I should not have to be doing this.'
I simply did my job.
I did not judge it or quantify it or anything. My only thought and only desire in the world, for those few moments, were to get the job done quick and get the job done right.
And I realized I was cured of my entitlement.
I don't pretend that I love picking up the half-finished soda and popcorn of the same people who complain it's too expensive in the first place, nor getting a whiff of the smell of the garbage bags in the trash compactor -- but I don't hate it anymore, and that's the whole thing for me.
Hate takes a lot of energy. That energy is consciously given. I decide to hate. People, things, situations. It is a monster made of thought, and I feed it. And I really the only one who suffers.
I picked the garbage up, or bagged it, or swept it, and left it where it belonged: the garbage.
There's a koan about a monk who lets a woman ride him piggy back over a river; a few days later, his junior says he can't believe the monk carried her like that; the monk says, I carried her a few moments, you've been carrying her for days.
I did not carry the garbage with me.
o
College was really the first place I encountered seemingly psychologically unwell people who seemed to not know how to stop talking. Neither stop talking nor discern the listener's interest in talking, talking to them, or about a certain topic.
They were a constant, desperate flow of chatter. They spoke about anything to anyone, and you'd wonder how they ever got to sleep. Unfortunately, they suffer a large share of rejection and cold shoulders. We don't understand them, we don't want to listen to them, so we ignore them. Eventually, you don't even give it a second thought.
I think the mind is like one of those people, but because it's in my head, I don't ignore it. I listen to every single word, usually, and accept the constant flow of chatter as 'me.' When I began to meditate, and I was trying to focus on my breathing, eventually I began to realize my mind would go right on talking without my involvement.
It was a shocking thing and one of the most important moments in my life.
The movie theater has been a sort of proving grounds for me. This place that I had been filling myself up with venom for, used to think only of the things that I'd hated: I would either have to return to that, or take a new approach. I think I've found it.
I'd always associated with the chatter in my mind. It seems natural to. It is natural to. But it left me entirely at the whim of whatever predominant thinking was going on in my mind.
I mean by 'associating' that my mind would go off on whichever direction it was going, and I would associate with it by saying, Yes, this is what I'm thinking, yes, this is how I feel.
But that's not directed thought -- it's reflexive thought. And I think the difference between the two is very important.
During the time I meditated and saw that my thoughts were still going on without my involvement, I also began to find out that I can redirect my thoughts. And recently I began to learn I can dissociate, focus just on what I'm doing, and not have to suffer the reflexive thoughts that might keep me weighed down in agony.
What all that means is: I don't manipulate my reflexive, subconscious thought, but that I instead can give it little attention and little encouragement to continue; I can now consciously focus on things I'd rather think about and consciously lift my mood.
And all that means I am in a better state than I was a year ago.