Tired of Getting it Wrong

I’m just growing tired of getting it wrong.  Even as I write this, and contemplate how I’ll describe my thoughts to you, I’m getting pissed.

I am frustrated and saddened by my inability to control my thoughts and feelings.  I am discouraged with my failure to let the thoughts and opinions of others roll off my back.

I struggle daily with the words of Spiritual Masters who speak of being in the world but not of it.  I read books about the lives of Saints and their words ring in my heart.  Then I sit in traffic and, as two lanes merge down to one, I watch some jerk stay on the bumper of the car ahead, feeling some sort of moral victory at staying one measly car length ahead of someone else.  After having meditated and praying for a peaceful day, a day lived from my heart, I immediately envision extricating this idiot from his car, slapping him across the face and then telling him to have a nice day.  Or, Her!  Just as many times it’s a her!

Of course, I can never do this.  I know that.  And for many reasons more than the obvious of finding my ass extremely kicked.  So why do I keep envisioning scenarios like that, then letting my stomach get into knots over it?

I’m a pretty peaceful guy.  I like to think I’ve always had a live and let live attitude.  But recently some Jagoff who made a gozillion dollars as one of the founders or original employees of Google, stood up at a televised town hall meeting and actually said, “Mr. President, please raise my taxes…”  I know violence never solves this kind of problem, but I am positive that my life would be better if I could hit him in the face with a board.  And that bothers me.  It bothers me that I have that kind of thought!

I further know that, spiritually speaking, having the thought is as bad as acting on it.  So I wonder what will happen as soon as I’m dead.  Do I go walking up to the Pearly Gates and St. Peter, or whoever has the duty that day, says, “Well, you can’t come in because you wanted to hit some jagoff in the face with a board.”  OK.  So then I say, “Well, your Saintliness, if I am going to Hell for wanting to smack that bonehead, shouldn’t I have just done it?  I mean if I am gonna spend Eternity where it’s hot as Hades… I mean, is Hades, then why didn’t I just whack him across his teeth and felt good about it for the next few years?”

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Of course, as I am asking him that, and pantomiming a nice, long swing with my imaginary Louisville Slugger, he looks on, ever so slowly shaking his head.  “What?!” I say.  Why not?!”

“It’s complicated…”

It’s always complicated!

Why am I upset by these people?  Why can’t I just ignore them and save the accompanying agita and become a more peaceful person?  Why can’t I become the peaceful person I’d really rather be?

Having these thoughts and my agony over not being able to get a handle on them was vividly demonstrated to me this past weekend.

You see, on the way to work, because of a long-term construction project, I have to deal with idiots as two lanes merge into one.  On the way home, there is a point at the freeway on-ramp, where the left turn lane actually becomes two.  Most people, upon the change of the signal, move to the left-most lane.  This enables dickwads to bypass the long row of those waiting in that lane and, at the change of the signal, to race ahead and cut into the now-opening right-most turn lane.  It annoys me.  So, I have taken to driving straight ahead, not moving over to the left-most lane, thereby hoping to foil their attempt to bypass the line and cheat others who have patiently waited.  As far as I can tell, I have only probably been successful at this once.  Maybe.  The rest of the time, I am not first at the signal and others are too slow to screw these bastards out of their victory.

But I wish I would stop it.  I want to, but each time I find myself in that position, I can’t override the urge and I move my car straight ahead, hoping to foil some jerkwad.

So, on a Sunday evening, I found myself sitting in this same lane to turn onto the freeway.  There were several cars lined up behind me, but out of the corner of my eye, I see the fender of a blue car come to a stop to the right of me.  I just know this jerk is going to try and cut off the people behind me when I move over to the left lane.  But I’m not gonna do it.  I’m gonna just glide forward, acting totally oblivious to them, and teach them a lesson.

I don’t turn my head but I can see the car inch forward a bit.  And every few seconds, an inch or two more.  Jackasses.  When the light changes, I accelerate.  I don’t hit the gas hard; I don’t lurch ahead, making it obvious.  But I drive forward and stay in my lane to accomplish my little victory.

And I do it!  The other car doesn’t accelerate as fast as I and signals to change lanes and get in behind me.  That’ll teach the a**holes.  To this point, I hadn’t even looked at the other car.  I just sat, looking ahead so I could go about my driving and act like I didn’t even know they were there or wanted to merge onto the freeway.  But, as they pulled in behind me, I allowed myself a glance into my rear view mirror.  The a**holes were my daughter and granddaughter.

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And I shouldn’t have been shocked.  I had just joined them at the movies and we pulled out of the lot close together!  But my annoyance, my anger at the behavior of others had so clouded my mind, and I had allowed myself to embark upon this path of my pitiful little revenge on them, that I couldn’t even think straight.  I didn’t even think that the blue car was my daughter’s and perhaps she was next to me at the signal.

As they passed me on the two-lane onramp, I saw my granddaughter’s little hand reach up and wave to me.  As I saw this and sank deeper into the depths of my stupidity, I found it hard to breathe.  I was burning with the realization that my inability to control my thoughts had so clouded my vision, that I couldn’t see the love which sat a few feet away trying, as she later told me, to creep her car forward to get my attention so my granddaughter could wave to Poppie.

As I drove down the freeway, I ran over a small rock or something.  The car shimmied a bit and flipped, end over end.  I was somehow killed in the ensuing crash, the details of which escape me and are unimportant.  I soon found myself enveloped in white light and then standing before The Ascended Masters.  I was swathed in pure Love and shown my life.  Without judgment from them, I watched as my life flickered past.  I felt the results of all the hurt I’d inflicted on others throughout my life by my egotistic and callous behavior. The few good things I’ve done were there, too, but mostly it was a life of which I was not proud.  I skipped quickly to the end.

As The Masters stood around me, their arms about my shoulders, I saw how clouded my mind could become from my inability to live with a peaceful heart.  I thought, the last thing I did in my life was to be so overwhelmed with… well, hate… when you get to the root, it is nothing less than hate.  I was so overwhelmed with hate that I missed the Love that was right there.

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Getting off the freeway, I felt my daydream linger, as if I was actually still surrounded by Ascended Masters.  Each of them was speaking to my mind, showing me how the slightest deviation from Peace and Love can cloud a person’s outlook.   Love is the only reality and everything else is just an illusion created by a clouded mind.  My clouded mind.

Is that what I wanted my last act to be in this life?  Did I want it to be treating someone else—especially my daughter and granddaughter!—with revenge and hatred in my heart?

It was such a profound demonstration of how coming from anywhere but my heart is keeping me from experiencing the real joy and love in life.  What a blessing to have this concept so vividly illustrated.

Then the next morning I was sitting in traffic and was again getting all pissed off at some jerk.  Why can’t I control my thoughts?

I am so tired of getting this wrong.