Balance and the Understanding, Accepting Asshole

Sometimes I feel like an asshole. I wrote that line and made a face not unlike how you'd scrunch when an acrid scent invades your nose. This isn't meant to be negative, but sometimes I feel like an asshole. Sometimes people are assholes. I feel this is something we can all agree on.

Sometimes I get jealous when my friends would rather do things alone or simply without me. Usually I don't say anything but sometimes I choose a road most travelled by shit, ie. asshole. I act this way due to love and from the want to spend time with people who make my life better. My rational brain, whom I will be referring to as Carl, knows that their time is precious. Carl knows that their time and decisions are their own. Frank, my emotional/irrational side, only sees his friends being taken away from him, if only for a few hours or days. Frank sees rational decisions (the need for rest, spousal companionship, solitary activity) as bad decisions (I used the term "horse-shit" the first time I wrote that sentence).

On the other hand, when Carl sees someone choose the emotional route, he has a similar reaction. I often think that Carl is more judgmental than Frank, but it boils down to both being assholes.

The general state is that these reactions come from positive places, at least for me. I take a great deal of time and focus to study how I am whenever I have the wherewithal to do so. I typically find that I react the way I do out of concern.

Here's a thing I find interesting. Concern, in many cases and especially the one I'm referring to, equates to or leads to worry. Concern, while you could make the argument that it's positive because you're thinking of others or considering other scenarios, is usually not based in compassion. Concern vs compassion. They are different.

Concern contains judgment. Which is totally okay. Again, chances are that you're coming from a positive place. You give a damn about the person/thing/activity and so on that you're concerned about, but it's not compassion.

Compassion was once referred to by a friend of mine (Windom, you're so smart) as radical understanding and acceptance. Compassion, to me, is from the impartial. It doesn't have your interest in mind as the primary engine for decision. Your interests and those of someone else can always align, but it's not required to feel compassion for another person. My hippy side, Frank, likes to lump it in with love. Love is not a rational emotion. Love needs no reason. Love just exists and love accepts and understands, or at least wants to understand.

HOMEWORK: Watch the documentary Happy.

You can make the argument that both Frank and Carl are capable of compassion, but I find compassion to be an example of balance. As compassion is rooted in understanding and acceptance, there is no inherent emotional or rational judgment being made. You are accepting that something is the way that it is, and you are allowing yourself to understand that it is happening and it is most likely out of your control. And maybe that's why I think the way that I do. Anger, jealousy and so on, at least as much I experience them, are rooted in judgement based on a desire to control.

The universe strives for harmony, as far as I am concerned. I feel that things are quite balanced, though they may not seem like it all of the time. I also believe that the universe can be incredibly unbalanced for us as individuals at times (which still means it's balanced as a whole). It's not fair when a cavalcade of bad things happen to us. "When it rains it pours" and all that. It's also the same for when an abundance of good happens.

This bit talks about fairness in both the positive and negative sense. It's not fair to lose a loved one and your job in the same couple of months, but it's happened to many of us (me too). It's also not fair that you would find twenty bucks on the ground, overcome a great obstacle and get your dream job in the same week (not me, but several folks I know. Still haven't found a twenty in the dirt. It'll happen!).

I say these aren't fair because that twenty you just picked might have been some one's lunch cash. Your loved one who passed away might have contributed their organs to save another person's life, or maybe they dove in front of a kid about to be hit by a car and pushed them out of the way.
(disclaimer: I still say you take the money off the ground. There's a greater chance that someone else will pick it up who it didn't first belong to, or more likely that it will be whisked away and ripped up. Take the win)

Universal fairness would mean that everyone would experience the exact same level of good and bad at the exact same time. Balance is not fairness in the universal sense. Sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad. Sometimes you get everything good and another person gets all the bad. It's not fair, but it is balanced.

And there's the fickle nature of things. While something isn't fair for you, it might have lead to the best day ever for someone else. I'm not saying that you should make your life shit for someone else on the infinitesimal chance that it will better their existence. That's just silly. I'm saying that the universe is balanced in both the positive and negative. Through this concept you can begin to understand the people and occurrences around you. I'm not saying you'll like everything that happens in the world, but you can deal with it through compassion. I want to reiterate my stance on compassion (some words in bold face to show importance): You are accepting that something is the way that it is, and you are allowing yourself to understand that it is happening and is out of your control.

Aaaaaaand example time. You go to your favorite coffee shop, but on your way you're almost hit by someone because they're late for work, their rushing and they just didn't have enough fucks to give to drive safely. It happens. You get flustered, you get angry. You then order your coffee but the kid behind the counter doesn't hear you clearly. You're mumbling, still thinking about the dick that nearly hit you in his silverado. The barista asks for your order again and you snap at them. "I said that I wanted a double-venti-no-caff-half-pump-cock-mouth-double-bubble-single-syrup-hayley-joel-osmund-americano!" Little did you know that the barista had just been accepted into College University, his dream school! Asshole. You just ruined their mood because you bled your attitude, your problems on to them.

Another (me...sorry Jenny and Cambrie): You miss your friends when they're not around. I will now be speaking in first person. I miss my friends when they're not around. I'm like that. I train with them most days and then usually we all hang out. So we trained, and then they wanted to go home to be with their significant others and/or study and/or rest and relax before another day at the salt mines. It was a break in my much loved routine. It was hot, I was tired and I was looking forward to recharging with them, and that's all that I could see. I snapped, then playfully ridiculed (like we do), but was more aggressive about it than usual. I caught myself but not before I could see I was making my friends mad. I put my happiness before their well being. Asshole. I apologized. I fucked with their mood because it wasn't my desired outcome. It's out of my control.

Out of your control. That's important. Probably the most important piece of it. You can't control everything, so you have two choices on the raw: fight against an outcome and be an asshole, spending your time and energy trying to change what is happening, or accept it and understand that something is happening outside of your control. You don't have to like it, you just have to admit it's happening and accept it.

Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. - Bruce Lee