402: Day 04 - My Biggest Lesson
December 3, 2009
by Jeffrey Pierce
I woke up at 6:05 AM this morning – which is twenty minutes too late to go running. I like to get up at 5:15 AM, get my run in, come home, start hot water for tea or chai, and spend a few minutes writing down thoughts for my next Old Ways piece before hopping in the shower with Bri. If all I’m going to do is run, I have to be up by 5:45 in order to dress, stretch, run, cool down, and come home in time to at least put water on the stove before hitting the shower. No, my biggest lesson isn’t about making sure that my alarm clock is set. The herculean task before me isn’t to learn how to juggle one more thing or pile one more item on my already full plate.
My challenge – is learning to rest.
I remember the first time I played The Sims, that happy little life simulator from EA Games. Unlike many people who lost themselves in the alternate lives they created, my fascination with the game lasted for about four hours.
See, my Sim was a wimp.
And I found that incredibly frustrating.
I’d set him to do one more task and he’d look up at the screen, waving his hand frantically above his head and shaking his head, “No.” I’d reset the task, he’d give in, try to comply, and topple over, fast asleep, in the middle of the floor. Frustration is not an emotion that I seek out in my video games. “What’s wrong with you?” I’d ask the screen in dismay. “I can do more than that!”
Having a Sim who could only complete a third of what I could do in a day wasn’t my idea of fun.
Fun? No. But maybe, it should have been a clue.
I’ve always been this way. Back in junior high, I was hired by a local farmer to help out on his farm for the summer. Just a handful of weeks into the job and we were done. He’d run out of work for me to do. The farmer was very apologetic and offered to hire me again should anything come up. I was eleven years old and had run through three months of farmhand work (building fences, the works) in only a few weeks.
Running? If I had my way, I’d run twice a day, increasing my mileage and speed each time.
Which, perhaps, isn’t the most realistic approach for me to take.
Winter should be an excellent time for me to take downtime. After all, a shaman spends a lot of time connecting with and observing the natural world, drawing parallels between his own life and what he sees in the wild, and then adopting the lessons into himself.
Has anyone noticed the trees? How they’ve shed their leaves and gone to sleep for the season? Think there might be a lesson in there that this particular shaman could adopt?
Nah…
We all have lessons like this, something the outside world looks at and thinks, “That’s so easy!” when, for us, it’s our Achilles’ Heel. What we need to remember is that it’s totally okay for us to have an area that our skills, aptitude, and ability to grow seems to totally overlook. Perhaps it’s practicing compassion. Maybe it’s focusing in and making progress in one area of growth before rushing off to the next. Some of us easily show others love but have a difficult time loving ourselves. The list of possibilities is as endless and as diverse as we are.
My challenge? Downtime. I’m just not good at taking it. Like all of our lessons, the Universe will give us a nudge in the right direction. Then a push. Then a shove. Then grab us by the back of our pants and the scruff of our neck and pitch us headfirst in the direction we need to go.
Bri and I refer to it as The Piano Syndrome. In our theory, the Universe uses pianos to get our attention. We’re walking along, clueless, and “ping!” something smacks us in the side of the head.
“Hey!” we exclaim. “What was that”?” And we look down to find a piano shaped pencil eraser at our feet.
“Hmmmm… That was odd,” we think – and just keep walking.
Suddenly, “Whack!” we get smacked in the head with a toy piano. But usually, we just keep walking, clueless not only to where we’re heading, but not even stopping to wonder, “Why am I being thwacked with pianos?” The pianos progressively get bigger until, everything gets strangely dark and we look up to see that baby grand hovering above our heads.
Missing my run this morning? It was my pencil eraser. So I’m going to take a hint from the trees, pull my energy deep within my own personal earth, and hibernate for the day. The road can wait until tomorrow.
It may not be the perfect solution to downtime, but hey, at least I’m looking out for pianos.