Today was my worst day in my attempts to remain conscious of being conscious. It started slow – making up for the late night working working on future case studies. It rolled along slowly until I got an email as I was walking out the door from the case study who was furious at the redundancies being thrown at it. It was understandable yet its fury through me for a loop. Once again I realized I was being too reactive to the third party who was assisting. It made me realize how fragile success can be even when the conditions are in one’s favor. I almost started to cry and lose it a little, fearing another failure. I caught myself and knew I was experiencing negative emotional triggers from recent life experiences so I bucked up and started swinging back. I spent the next two hours crafting through emails, including one beautiful, justified rant and I managed a little damage control.
While I was crafting my emails I was thinking about the week that was and thought, “What else could go wrong?”
Why do I do that to myself?
No sooner did I say that to myself then in the same moment I got texts from another friend summarizing another horrific condition. It was the second volley of life-changing texts I’ve been a part of in 72 hours. This time I spent my afternoon at the hospital to show support. Weirdly enough, I was able to finish the last of the case study’s damage control via the phone there when there was a break in the action.
But either way, I stayed in reaction mode until I was given contingencies and quickly I took a look at my situations, stopped moping and became conscious of my presence (being) as spelled out on A New Earth. I began to consider where I was was, the outcome of those actions and realized that in the end I had to make decisions and move on, remembering that this, too, shall pass, and that I don’t mind things.
What else did I consider?
What triggered me to remember to consider my presence and become conscious of being conscious: I was reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson the night before and was recalling how Isaacscon wrote that Steve Jobs damned near cried at every potential failure and disagreeance. Why? It wasn’t so much that he was spoiled. I mean, from what I’ve read his upbringing was a fine line between coddled and encouraged, but whatever it was it fueled his passions enough to allow himself to be guided by them, for better or worse. I realized I was doing the same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale. Then again, he was doing it before Apple got its first contract at The Byte Shop.
When I realized I was going through a similar pattern, I snapped too, told my process thinking to The Case Study – who was delightfully amused. I considered the situation, counted my blessings, aligned the debits & credits and took a breath.
And things began to get better.
The case study is back on point. The process will need to be cleaned up on the third party’s side or there will be Hell to pay. Monday morning is going to be a spitfire and a war. But I’ll be ready to go…so long as I am aware of my presence. Also, the friend with the issue is sorting out the facts. Hopefully it will take care of itself. Time will tell.
Yeah, what the Hell is Presence?
Presence, in Tolle’s world, is the same as “being.” Of, “oneness.” Self-awareness. He goes on to make the concept ethereal and relate it as a self-deity, but I hold true to the essence of what he said. In the end, all teachings show that there needs to be maintained an awareness of yourself with respect to things and to not let yourself get too wrapped up in the things that aren’t as important as your family and loved ones.
Here’s a video of Eckhart Tolle discussing Presence
Let’s hope I’m better at it tomorrow.
Now, if my go*****ed iPhone would quit running into errors while updating, I’ll consider the day to be break-even.
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