….and went sliding into “I don’t care”.

Learning, learning, learning….all the time learning.  I can’t help it….I’m always learning something.  Most of the time, I’m learning the same thing over and over…something about retention.

What was I saying?  Just kidding…I have more focus than that.

I meet people who seem to have it all together sometimes.  They know what they know…and that’s all they am.  That’s an efficient way to handle life, I guess…build up a storehouse of needed information, establish a strong and consistent comfort zone, and then don’t get out of it for the rest of your life…get mired into some strong opinions that you aren’t afraid to share…and just go for it.

Just go for it.

That confident front is something that I can’t rise to meet.

The “zen folk” talk about beginner’s mind…staying open to new things as if it was the first time the subject was presented…eager and willing to learn.

What do they call beginner’s mind if it’s by default?

We are resilient…malleable…able to leap tall buildings….no, that’s someone else…

We can rise to the occasion when presented with “emergencies”.  Any situation outside of our comfort zone has the opportunity to change us.  If we seek discomfort, seek adventure, seek the new …wouldn’t we spend our lives…no, live our lives… deep in the constant of changing …and maybe improving?

The thing about seeking the new all the time is that, at some point at least, the terror of constant change and uncertainty becomes the norm…and I suppose that you’d get used to it.  Being in a state of flux becomes old hat…growing and changing isn’t a scary thing.

Of course, it never stops being confusing for the people around us…”you used to be so nice…what happened to you?”.  I don’t know what to think about that.  It’s great to be a “people pleaser”…but I think it gets hard to please anyone if you dislike yourself.

I used to think that “lay down your life for a friend” meant taking the bullet, absorbing the blow.  Now I think maybe it means giving up your desires to make everyone else’s life better.

The trouble with that is, from my experience, that at some point you’re going to feel like calling in your markers….and when your sacrifice isn’t appreciated like you think it should be, it hurts like crazy.

People with needs can’t slow down long enough to notice who might be trying to fill those needs.  They take care of the people around them, to be sure…but taking care of themselves doesn’t go much farther than voicing a need…and having needs makes it hard to really take care of the people around them, too.  It’s not hard to get used to the “nobility” of always putting yourself before others, either.  We try and fill the roles we choose.

What I mentioned earlier about being set in your ways…I guess that what makes it really hard is to present that “I’ve got it all together” front…but feel the need to change churning under the surface all the time.  That’s a tension filled conundrum …what do you do if the way you think the world sees you doesn’t jibe with how you really see yourself?

Some of us just keep pulling the chrysalis tighter around us, I guess.