The big easy

CHASING DOWN THE MUSE

Eager to get started with my full-to-the-brim day, I pull my favorite

pants from the dryer. They warm my morning-cool fingers as I shake

them out, hands at the waistband. The narrow black cord streams out

of one side. The length of the cord tells me immediately that one end

is lost somewhere in the confines of the narrow waistband. D---! I

don’t have time for this.

Oh no! I didn’t say that, did I? Sure, I only said it in my head

and not aloud, but, still, the phrase serves to bring me up short.

Just a few days ago I was mentally critiquing someone else for their

response of “I don’t have time for this” and the concomitant negative

energy imparted. Now I catch myself at this same response.

How often we all make some comment like this or, if not, at least

think it. When something interferes with what we see as our forward

motion, we “don’t have time for it.” Wanting to control the process

and outcome of our lives, we rail at these interferences with what we

see as the easy route.

Taking the optimistic view, these things that stop our forward

motion can be seen as gifts. “Gifts?” you may ask. “What -- is she

crazy?” Given that, I still maintain that any obstacle to our forward

motion, any unplanned pause in the momentum, has its good points --

or gifts, if you will allow the use of this term. Would you resist a

gift?

Much of a life is made of these inopportune things -- glitches in

our plans. It isn’t so much their occurrence as what we do with them

that counts most. Sure, they are obstacles -- challenges to our

forward progress. Showing up unasked, right in the midst of our

plans, they change our direction. But the gift may just be the

opportunity for redirection; the challenge one to our ability to go

with the flow--even when it changes.

Do you spend your time and energy railing at the gods for letting

the interference delay or change your careful plans? Or do you “make

lemonade out of lemons”? Perhaps, you simply go about moving or

removing the impediment before regaining your place right where you

left off.

Most of us probably vary in our responses -- doing some of each of

the above mentioned possibilities. I know I do. The ideal would be

never to “waste” my energy on the ranting. That’s not always how it

works out. Whether I spend energy on big things like wondering why we

really made war on Iraq and worrying about the consequences of that

action or rant at the smaller issues such as my time being misspent

in re-placing slender black cords, it all is a misuse of my time and

energy. It is resistant and futile.

How can we, instead, follow the path of least resistance? How do

we make the interference -- in whatever form it appears, large or

small -- something with minimal or no “payment”? By making the most

simple and least resistant response to the challenge presented, we

are able to save energy. Not by ignoring the interfering challenge.

Not by ranting and raving against it. Patient, simple, “easy”

responses are the path of least resistance.

After all, certainly in this instance at least, a narrow black

cord out of place is only a narrow black cord out of place, nothing

more. It only impedes me just a bit. With slow, patient care I ease

the black cord back through the waistband. As I work, my mind is

freed to play in other fields, solving problems, conjuring up new

possibilities. I think of a river into which a tree falls, changing

the river’s direction. Now it meanders through new scenes, perhaps

sunny fields or a shady glen where there had not been one along the

route. This vision conjures up new possibilities. It is exciting.

So here is the gift of the wayward black cord. Or perhaps it is

just the opportunity itself to see who I am being, how I am behaving,

in a given moment and the chance to change, to be less resistant to

what happens.

“Be willing to have it so; acceptance of what has happened is the

first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”

-- WILLIAM JAMES

* CHERRIL DOTY is a creative living coach, writer, artist and

walker who lives and works in Laguna Beach. Contact her by e-mail at

emmagine8@aol.com or by phone at 251-3993. Your comments are

appreciated.