This week Iām writing about dealing with lifeās unpleasantness. This is inspired by Brother Lawrenceās third letter. If you are thinking my connection with Lawrence is getting looser as we go, youāre not wrong. This is not how I expected the series to go. Thatās okay. Life is not required to follow my expectations.
L A W R E N C E Ć J E F F
letter Ā· 3
part Ā· 1
Iāve been raking leaves in my garden every weekend for a few weeks. My thought as I raked last weekend was, This is a bit tedious. Then I had a better thought: I get to have a tree! My tree puts out pink blossoms in spring. The leaves turn fiery red before they fall. It does summer and winter stuff too. I get to watch the drama of the seasons happening just outside my bedroom and dining room windows. I get to have a tree!
Many of lifeās unpleasantnesses are part of the package of having lifeās nice things. A good way to deal with the unpleasantness is to flip your thoughts.
Ugh, I have to buy a new set of tyres āø I get to have a car!
Ugh, I have to clean the windows āø I get to live in a house with light!
Ugh, I have to manually edit 600 cells on this spreadsheet āø I get paid money so I can live indoors and buy food and go to the cinema!
Ugh, I have to spend the next three weeks revising for this incredibly hard exam āø I get to have an education that will unlock many of opportunities for me!
These are small, obvious examples, but a lot of misery in the world is created by unhelpful responses to everyday situations.
Flipping works for big stuff too. Iāve written before about my time in Russia with Bill Gothardās cult. It took years for me to fully recover from the mental and emotional damage that was done to me there. My parents, seeing the pain that I endured, said, We shouldnāt have let you go. My response was, You donāt understand. I got to live in Russia!
Grow slowly
Jeff
P.S. My book is the perfect gift for humans with functioning eyes. Bonus: it costs Ā£1.50 less (and contains 442 fewer calories) than an āIced Brown Sugar Oat Shaken Espressoā and an āEspresso Roast Blondieā from Starbucks.
Yes to the flip! Two things. One -- I love this "unhelpful responses to everyday situations." Yep. And two, it also reminds me of the Buddhist saying, "After enlightenment, the laundry." There is a lot of maintenance in life.