👽 TREE 261: Get yourself out of the middle

One.

Throwback! This illustration by Maurice Sendak is from Open House for Butterflies by Ruth Krauss. I originally shared it in TREE 95.

Two.

The universe is huge.

You are tiny.

There are many things that happen to you of which you are not the cause and over which you have no control.

You have a storytelling, meaning-seeking brain. It will do its best to connect your agency to these events.

This is why my adopted daughter, who is nearly 10 and has been in our family for 8½ years, wonders what defect of hers caused her birth mother to give her up. Of course, we’ve told her the truth many times, but her brain still tries to create a story where she played an active part, even if that part is destructive.

This human tendency doesn’t go away just because you grow up. As an adult, you do at least have the ability to see reality and tell yourself a truer story about the influence you do – or, more often, don’t – have on the universe.

Tell yourself the truer story.

Three.

Billy Idol has released a new EP. This song is very excellent.

I’ve written quite a bit lately about the power you and I don’t have. I’m not promoting a passive attitude toward life. I know people have incredible ability to create new things and change the status quo. To do that, it’s important to know where your power isn’t. Otherwise you end up wasting a lot of energy and time for no results.

Last Monday, I told you I got nailed by a podcast and needed to process some things. I started. TREE this week is about dealing with things that happen to you. It was inspired by some of the thinking I did last week.

Grow slowly
Jeff