Lesson 11 - It's a Piece of Cake

Do you know what’s hard about life?

Everything.

Which is crazy, right?  Because, life really isn’t that hard.  Life could be so much easier for most of us.  It’s like we aren’t even trying.  Or maybe we are trying in all the wrong ways and wrong directions.

Or maybe about all the wrong things.

Ego, pride, vanity… the things that keep us focused on ourselves.  How awesome I am or should be and you aren’t.

Always trying to impress others with our awesome awesomeness.  And whenever this is our goal, it’s almost guaranteed to end in awful.

It’s a tricky line to walk.  The line between trying to look good for the sake of narcissism, and looking good simply because taking care of oneself and appearance is healthy physically, mentally, and spiritually.  Having the appropriate appearance in a given context is useful for putting people at ease and gaining trust.

Motive matters.  Always.

You remember going to banquettes and dances and such in high school, right?  You took time look your best and spent money on the pretty flowers or dress or tie or tux.  You wanted your date be impressed with you (maybe a little vain?) but also you wanted your date feel like you cared enough to try hard (much more selfless than the other reason).

And this is probably ok because banquettes and proms are nerve racking enough as it is.  Put a bunch of growing, changing, socially awkward people in a room and make them have conversation in a setting and context they are not normally accustomed to, and, well, awkward and embarrassing things can happen.  To others.  Not me that one time (only one?) my junior year.

Ok, ok.  Since you asked, I’ll tell you.  Don’t say I never did anything for you.

Every year in high school we had a number of scheduled banquettes and formal gatherings.  There was a Thanksgiving banquette.  The Christmas Banquette.  The Valentines banquette.  There was also Fall Fest, but that was different.  Less tuxedo’s and more over-alls.

This one particular banquette, I was in between girlfriends.  Which is not the same as being lonely and pathetic.  You can prove nothing.

As such, I was trying to decide what I was going to do.  Ask someone randomly or go stag?  Run the risk of awkwardness or sit at a table with other dudes, or be the third wheel to some other happy cuddly sickening couple and pretend I wasn’t all sad and lonely.  (Wow, that made me sound really pathetic.  You can prove nothing.)

I decided to be awesome and brave and chivalrous and ask some equally unattached female to “hang out and be losers together” or some other such romantic words.

So, I asked a girl I was on the gymnastics team with.  She was super nice and friendly.  A really cool person.  She was more on the quiet side, which is totally fine, except I was also a bit on the quiet side.  But I figured, it’s only one evening, we will get through it just fine.

And so we did.  I put on my finest tie and jacket that I borrowed from someone else, brought the prerequisite single rose and arrived to escort her to the grand shin dig.  She looked lovely.  Hair beautiful, dress amazing… girls do that whole “cleaning up” thing so much better than we guys do.

Everything was going just fine.  We weren’t dating, so there is always that unspoken question of “so… what is actually going to happen here…” but we just kept it friendly, chit chatted, I opened doors and offered my arm for walking and pulled out chairs.  I was trying very much to be a gentleman and make sure we both had a great time.

Completely unrelated…

Do you know what I hate?  Plastic forks.  They do nothing well.  Unless you are trying to eat thick mashed potatoes with them (and why would you when a spoon is better), they pretty much just break at the slightest provocation.

Sooo…

We had just finished our main course at the meal and the dessert was served.  It was something chocolatey with some strawberry in a sauce on top.  As I was delicately and deliberately eating with gentlemanly class like a real man (read: stabbing mindlessly at my dessert), my fork snapped in half.  The business end launched itself across the planet to God-knows-where, probably maiming some poor innocent person, and the handle I was still holding slammed down onto the edge of the super classy dessert sized paper plate, flipping it up into the air, causing my entire dessert to launch it’s up into this beautiful arc, and land ever so gracefully sticky side down on my dates dress.

Her look of shock was outshone only by my look of absolute horror.  It’s one of those things you can’t really take back, and when the entire table and maybe half the room saw it happen, it’s not something you immediately recover from.

To say that the rest of the evening was a bit awkward is an understatement.  She never got mad, but I could tell she wasn’t happy.  The tension was so thick you could never have cut it with a plastic fork.  Because they break!

I felt so bad.  I had really tried.  I had tried to be nice and friendly and considerate.  I was focussed on her.  Which was good.  But I wasn’t focussed on what I was doing.  Which, as it turned out, was bad.

But I hear you say, “sure, that’s embarrassing, but accidents happen and it’s just part of life.”

Agreed.  It’s true.  Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, the wrong thing happens.  The truth is, other than being slightly less attentive to my fork than I should have, I really didn’t do anything wrong.  Stuff happens, and it just happened to happen to me.

Perhaps that’s the point.  Even when you try, you don’t always succeed.  Ask any billionaire how they came to be billionaires and they will tell about the couple things they did right, and the hundreds of failures they had to learn from which got them there.

No matter how hard you try to be a better human, to be a more selfless, less vain and egotistical human, there are going to be failures and setbacks.  It doesn’t mean we don’t try.

And that’s the flip side.  Often, we don’t try because we expect the failure.  We know we can’t win them all, and maybe not even most of them, so why bother?  It’s so much easier to just float along with the crowd of whatever and not shake up the boat.  Why be better and draw the attention of others when you can just blend in to the mediocrity?

It’s easy to do.  It doesn’t take much effort to blend in.  And most of the time there are few obvious penalties to blending in, even if there are also few obvious benefits.  

Why write our own story when we can just cost along and let the story write itself?

Back to high school, there was this one day when a couple of the guys in my class got into this huge argument.  It got so bad that they decided they were going to throw down.  So they and the crowd around them, me included, all crammed into this one room to watch it happen.  A bunch of people standing around watching two kids beat each other bloody.

And we were all hyped up to see an actual fight.  Most of us had never actually seen real people get into a fight before.  What was that going to be like?   Would there be kung-fu goodies?  Would it be super lame?

It started with lots of pushing and the occasional jab and clumsy grazing of fist to head or arm or whatever.  It was completely lame, but we were all gawking just the same.  

As we were standing around just letting it happen, one of our other classmates barged into the room.  This guy shoved his way through the onlookers, and got in-between the combatants.  He shoved one against the wall with his forearm and held the other one away with a handful of shirt.  After he did so, he did something strange.  He looked around the room at each one of us.  He looked everyone one of us in the eye and asked what was wrong with us?  Why did we just let this happen?  Why didn’t a single one of us even try to stop it?

I’ve done a lot of embarrassing things in my life.  But that moment remains one of my most shameful moments ever.  It should have been me to stop that fight.  Or any of the other people there.  But if not them, it should have been me.  I should have tried.  I shouldn’t have just followed along like some apathetic zombie.  I should have stepped up and tried to make things different.

There is a quote that goes something like this.  “All that is need for evil to thrive is for good men (and women) to do nothing.”

The world is what it is because most of us don’t really try.  We complain a lot about what it is, and then proceed to do nothing about it.  The same is true about ourselves.  We complain about our problems and failings and fears, and then proceed to do nothing about it.  We just float along doing what we’ve always done, or some variation of it, but ultimate make no real change.

But what if?  What if you actually tried?  What if you tried a different way?

        What if you did something new?

Lesson 8 - The Brazier Entanglement Theory

You know what I hate about change?  It’s so frustratingly hard and completely lacking in fun.  It seems like it should be simple, right?  Decide what needs to happen, and then just do it.

Easy peezy.

Of course, it never is.

You know what else should be easy?  Doing the laundry.  It’s a simple process.  Water on, soap in, cloths in, door closed, wait till the buzzer makes that annoying sound, cloths out, put in dryer, put fabric softener dryer sheet thingy in dryer, clean out lint trap, close door, set timer, turn on, wait till buzzer makes that annoying sound, pull out cloths, put in basket, carry to bedroom, dump on bed, fold cloths, put in proper cloths holding place.

Easy peezy.

But it never is.  There is always the one sock you can’t find.  The pair of underwear that fell between the washer and dryer during the transition phase that you just can’t reach because your arm is one inch too short and you have to get a hanger or a stick or a tree fairy or anything else small that can reach in and grab it.  The shirt that will not iron out smooth even if you used a steam roller on it.  The stack of cloths you had finally folded perfect for a change that you accidently knocked off the bed as you reached for another item of clothing and had to refold all over again.

Between that and picking out all the remnants of the tissue that I had left in my pocket that shredded itself onto every item of clothing, or trying to get the grease stains off my favorite shirt because my wife left her chapstick in her jeans and neither one of us bothered to check before sticking it in the wash machine.

But you know what I hate most?

Washing my wife’s bras.  

I don’t hate the bras.  I like them.  Actually, I pretty much only like what they are designed to hold.  I don’t actually have any feelings about the bras themselves.  But I have developed a theory about bras.

It’s called the Brazier Entanglement Theory and it goes like this.

If you put one bra in the wash, it will some how wrap itself around itself and some random long sleeve shirt, tying both into a wrinkled mess.

If you put two or more bras in the wash, no matter how you separate them in the layers of clothing, they will find each other and knot themselves together, along with at least three other pieces of clothing, so tightly that only God himself has any chance at all of getting them apart without tearing a hole in the fabric of space and time.

None of the other clothing items do this.  Only braziers.  It defies all logic and reason.  I’m convinced it’s a fundamental law of quantum mechanics distinct, but closely related to, quantum entanglement.

Just not nearly as cool or as useful.

And it happens every time.  Every.  Single.  Time.

No amount of clever arranging or organizing the clothing in the machine makes any difference at all.

I’ve told lots of people this theory.  One lady responded that if I would simply clasp them together in the wash, this wouldn’t happen.

“Please… what does she know???” I said in my head as I pretended to take her advice seriously and thanked her for the suggestion.

I mean really, a woman knowing how to properly take care of womanly garments?  Better than me?  A man?  Who doesn’t wear them?

Ignoring her completely, I went back home and continued to kick the laundry tire for a long time.  One day they had so knotted together with every other piece of clothing in the laundry, I was literally able to grab one item of clothing and pull out the entire load.  I stood there over the wash machine and spent half an hour pulling everything apart.

It was at that moment that it occurred to me…

“What if I clasp them before I put them in the wash?” as if it had been my own very clever idea and not stolen from the nice lady who had kindly tried to help me.

So the next time, I did that very thing.

Not a single item of clothing was tangled.  No shirts in a bra.  No bra-on-bra action.  In fact, since I’ve started doing that, I’ve only had a couple minor episodes of entanglement.

If only I’d known sooner.

Pride is such a fickle thing.  Our ego wants so hard to keep us from change that it blinds us through our pride to alternative avenues to anything.  It makes change not just hard, but completely undesirable.

I didn’t want to listen to that lady, because then I would have to admit that she had considered something that I hadn’t.  And if I took her advise, and it worked, then I would have to admit that she was also correct and I wasn’t.  That her way was better than mine.

And I hate to be wrong.  Being wrong suggests that I am less capable than I thought I was.  It makes me look less than I am and my ego wants to keep me puffed up and looking sharp.  Never letting me look bad, and never letting me appear to be flawed and in need of help.

Change is hard because in order to become a better person, or remove flawed habits and patterns of behavior, we have to recognize these very things, and believe them.  Be willing to admit to ourselves that I was my own problem.  I have to be willing to see that I don’t have to be better and smarter than everyone else at everything every time.

But more importantly, I have to be ok with it.  I have to be ok with it and have it not bother me at all when someone else succeeds faster than me, or succeeds where I failed, without making excuses or putting down their success.

Change requires the complete destruction of our hubris and egoist desires.  If we were to examine every time we showed evident flaws of character, we would see that every event was a direct result of extreme selfishness on our part.  Our selfish need to be seen a specific way, or to be a specific thing that just isn’t true or real.

Recognizing that these perceptions just don’t matter removes such a huge burden from our lives.  So much stress and angst just disappears.

And the thing is, once the change happens, we look back and wonder why that was so hard and ask ourselves why we didn’t do this sooner.  We can be so close to the problem that we can’t see the solution.  We can be so close to the problem that we can’t see that, usually, we are the problem and the answers were right there the whole time waiting to be clasped together.

Blog 11: Let Go My Ego.

So, my wife is out of the country.

I've been alone all week. And it's cold. I'm the guy who has to have the house cool at night because he gets too hot when sleeping. I'll spare you the details of how that works in any practical way. The point is, this week, without my wife... I had to add two extra blankets to the bed. Not only that, I had to fold them in half and lay them on my side. That's how cold it was without her there. When you consider, normally, I have to hang one leg out of the covers just to keep from bursting into flames, well, that says alot.

Oh ya, I said I wasn't going to start giving details. Sorry.

Did I mention it's lonely here?

My point?

Actually, I don't have one there. This is mostly a cry for sympathy.

Is it working?

Hey, I forgot... Hello everyone.

Yes yes, I realize that I was so caught up in my own lonely, cold, pizza-eating self-pity that I forgot to say hello. I'm sorry. I'm a bad man.

Well, on to more important things.

I'm going to come right out and say a couple things to start off. I try to say what I believe honestly and clearly, all while being as open and inoffensive as possible. I'm not out to harm anyones sensitivities. And, so far, no one has complained, so... victory is mine! (man, Family Guy is funny... sorry, bad reference.)

I say all that because I'm going to begin with this. I believe in God. I believe God is real. I believe God is a real being. I believe in the Christian God. Who also happens to be the Jewish and Islamic God. Who, as it turns out, was also part of many of the early pantheons of gods that many early cultures believed in. He is referenced in Babylonian mythology. But that isn't the point here. The point is, I believe He is real. I will concede that, for the most part, we don't know what we are talking about when it comes to the nature of God... but I still believe He exists.
Which means, by extention, I believe in the existance of the devil. Satan. Lucifer. I believe that he too is real. My beliefs of him are much more traditional than my beliefs on the nature of God, but again, the history and specifics are all irrelevant for this discussion.

The point is, I believe they exist. But today, I'm not focusing on them so much. It's important for me to say that because of the question I'm about to ask you.

The question is this.

Who/what is a persons/mankinds worst enemy?

If, after reading what I said just before that question, you still say "the devil"... well, you don't get a cookie. The answer "the devil" doesn't count for this quiz. For two reasons.

One. If you are christian/religious, then you already assume that he's the baddest baddy around. It's a given. So we aren't going there.

Two. If you aren't a christian/religious, then you don't believe in the devil anyway, so going their is virtually pointless. So I guess what I should have asked is...

Who/what is a persons/mankinds second worst enemy?

Ok, fair enough. Actually, both questions are accurate depending on which group you fall into, but you get the point.

Just think about yourself for a moment. Short of the originator of evil, who is the worst enemy you have? What is the worst enemy you have?

Many of you probably find the answer obvious. But just in case you don't, if you want the answer, go look in a mirror and tell me what you see?

You are your worst enemy. I am my worst enemy. We are our own worst enemies.

Now, if you gave that answer, you are correct, but that is still a bit of a vague cop-out answer. What does that mean? Why is that true? How can that be true? In what way is that true?

I'll make it simple. One word. Three letters.

Ego.

You want to know what makes our own lives so difficult sometimes? It's our own ego. I'm not saying other things don't contribute. I'm just saying this is at the top of the list.

Ego.

What is it that causes us to react in any given way? Or maybe I should say, what causes us to react negatively to stimulus?

Let's say you are driving in your car, and someone cuts you off. Do you get cranky about it? Some of you might not. And those who do, some of you probably keep it inside without screaming. But even so, the feelings arose.

Why?

Ego. You got wronged. The cut you off. Pulled in front of you when it was your turn to be somewhere. They can't do that to you. You are more important. It inconvenienced you. You. How dare they? Don't they know you have places to be? Don't they know they are moronic jerks?

Ego. In that scenario, your status was more important than theirs. You were self centered. You were Egocentric. You weren't concerned with their needs. Only yours.

Now, you might say, "that isn't wrong." Fair enough. It's not. At least, not always. What if that person who cut you off had a pregnant woman in the back seat, but you just couldn't see her? And they were racing to the hospital? Sure, not real safe, but would you have gotten upset if you had known that? If you had known there was actually a reason for the seemingly rude behaviour?

Ego is what causes you to NOT stop and think about it. It tells you to react on self interest.

How about this. You are working on something. Your car. Your computer. Some project. It doesn't matter what it is. But you are working on it. And you've done it before. You know what you are doing. While you are doing it, some one comes up and tells you that you are doing it wrong.

How does that make you feel? Do you get angry inside? Or at least a little cranky inside? Does it frustrate you? If so, why? What if they had said that what you are doing works, but there is a much better way of doing it?

Would it matter? Would you still be upset? Probably?

Look, we don't like to admit it, but we usually get a little upset when this happens.

But why? (insert the word "ego", here.)

What is happening at that moment? Well, you've done what you are doing many times. You know what you are doing. Do you need someone telling you what to do? Or how to do it? Or that they can do it better? Cause really, that's what they are saying. If they can recognize that you aren't doing it a good way, then, they must think they can do it better.

How dare they. Coming up to you and implying that you don't know what you are doing? That you might not know what you are talking about? That's an insult to your abilities and intelligence. That is them saying they are better than you.

Now, you might not have all those words come into your head. But the emotions show up that go with them. At least some of them.

That is your Ego. Your ego doesn't want to be told what to do or that it doesn't know what it's doing. It doesn't like the suggestion that someone else might have a better way, or might know something you don't. Your ego interprets all that stuff as if it's a threat or challenge to who you are.

Because nothing is more important than your Ego. At least, so your ego thinks.

Just to be clear, I keep saying "your ego." But I'm talking about mine as well. I'm no better. I have an ego. I get pissed off when someone tries to tell me my business. Oh, I might smile and nod and be polite, but inside, I'm screaming at them to shut their pie hole and mind their own business. Inside, I'm telling them that I don't need some half wit moron telling me what is true or not.

And that may work for us really well, right up till the moment we are slapped in the face with irrefutable proof that they, in fact, were correct. Not us. Not me.

Them.

Well, the ego can't handle that. The ego can't handle the fact that sometimes, we don't know what we are doing, or at the very least, someone else might be able to do it better, or know more about it.

Our Ego is our worst enemy because it convinces of things that many times just aren't true. Trying to protect us from the appearance of failure in our minds. "No, it can't be my fault. There is no way I am wrong. It must be Ted's fault."

Have you ever done that? Something went wrong at work and immediately without hesitation you said, "I didn't do it." or "It wasn't my fault."

I've done it more times than I can remember. It's down right embarrassing as I think about it.

That's ego.

Our Ego tries to control our world. Tell us what to think and how to react. And, really, I don't think this is anything that most of us don't already know.

So why prattle on about it, then?

Because Ego is why Christianity, and religion in general, is so screwed up. Ego is why many people refuse to learn more about those who are different or think differently. Ego is why "christians" spend most of their time fighting with each other over who is more right instead of working together to save lives.

Ego is why so many people never find salvation.

And I'm not just talking about non-christians. Ego is why so many "christians" never find salvation.

Because ego won't let them be wrong. Ego won't let them be wrong and realize they have something to learn. Ego won't let them open their eyes and see truth. Ego won't let them open their heart and love.

Ego won't let them see God.

Ego only lets them see themself. And that is the exact opposite of salvation.

Now, some of you are probably shouting "that's the devil at work."

Well, sure. I believe that. But here is the truth.

We don't need the devil to make us be that way. We are more than happy to do that on our own.

For us, the devil only prods us to do that which we already want to do. If that weren't true, it wouldn't be called "temptation." Because if we didn't want to do it, we wouldn't be tempted.

But let's back up the time machine. Back to Lucifer. Before he fell. Who tempted him?

No one. All he needed was his ego and a lack of self control.

Now, we could argue whether or not Lucifer had an ego. But that's a metaphysical argument for another time. I'm just going to say that I think he does and did no matter what his physical make-up actually is.

The point is, we are our enemies. We cause ourselves to have problems with others. We create our own conflict. Sure, someone else might start the trouble. But we don't have to help it out.

I'm talking spiritually and relationally here. If someone steps up and is trying to harm you or your family, I think we are dealing in a slightly different realm. I'm not talking about that.

Spritual and relational. Self centered vs other centered. Egocentric self importance vs open selfless compassion and self confidence.

Wait, what?

That's right. Selfless and self confident go together. Selfish and self confident almost never go together.

If one isn't comfortable with themself, they are not capable of seeing beyond themselves to focus on others. We are too caught up with trying to make ourselves comfortable instead of just being comfortable. And more importantly, the selfish person is trying to get other people to see them as confident and comfortable, while a truly confident and comfortable person doesn't care who sees it. They simply aren't worried about it.

And because they aren't, they can worry about other things. Like other people.

I'm sure you realize it, but this is one of the biggest themes in the bible. What were the words of Solomon?

Pride goes before a fall? A haughty heart before destruction?

The entire gospel is themed around this concept. They just never used the word Ego.

Jesus and Paul and the others kept talking about emptying ourselves to self. Paul called it "dying to the old man."

Did you ever notice in scripture that it was the person of WEAK faith that was trying to force everyone to do things a certain way? And the person of STRONG faith was able to be comfortable doing just about anything because his "faith" permitted it?

That's because the person of STRONG faith had nothing to prove to anyone. The person of WEAK faith is trying to prove himself to everyone.

The person of STRONG faith can roll with life because of that. The person of WEAK faith cannot.

That is because the person of STRONG faith has removed his/her ego from the equation and allowed God and others into their life. The person of WEAK faith is still letting their ego show everyone how everyone one how great they are, and trying to fill others with their big egocentric based focused. Trying to conform the world to the whims of their ego. The whims of their view.

They don't want everyone to revolve around God. They want everyone, including God, to revolve around them.

We can blame Lucifer for all this if we want. And don't get me wrong, he deserves a whole lot of blame.

But in the end, we have no one to blame but ourselves. No one makes us act a certain way. We choose to. No one chooses for us.

Pride and ego. Flip sides of the same coin.

The question is, "What is driving you?"

Happy Sabbath, peace, and good night.