Roller Coaster

Up and down, left and right, wavering this way and that – it sometimes feels like being on some kind of demented roller coaster. And with me is the equally demented roommate , sometimes so fully identified with me that we seem indivisible. Is the inner Roommate ego and also the meaning making machine? We are meaning making creatures who are incredibly self-centred. Everything is all about me. If I say, “It isn’t you, it’s me”, I’m not lying.

I don’t perceive the contradiction when I dislike something you do but then turn around and do the same to you. It happens rarely out of spite. It’s even the small things. I text and you and don’t hear back for a long time. So the meaning making begins. And sometimes completely unrelated events get bundled in to the meaning making. The time I said something, innocently,enough in my mind, that caused an unintended reaction. And now you’re using your silence to get back at me. And when I happen to suggest to the inner roommate that maybe you got busy – maybe the suggestion is accepted but more than likely isn’t. Then you respond and it’s like when suddenly the cloud moves away from the sun and all is bright and warm again. For a while.

Maybe this is one thing I’m learning – how to live with the meaning making roommate and maybe teach him how to be more consistent and more understanding.

Musings on a Bus

It seems like some of my more productive moments are on the bus ride home. It is long enough to get relaxed and I generally don’t know anybody on that bus so I get plenty of alone time with just me, my iPod and my thoughts.

On one such recent bus ride I wedged myself into a seat as the fourth one of four on this sideways facing bench. I had my music on, as usual, and my eyes closed, as I usually do. The bus ride was truly uneventful except toward the end of my ride. The rider beside me got off so there was now a seat to spare. I could have moved over to it but I didn’t. Here’s why. I often see this happen and I wonder if the one who remains in their seat is put out a bit and half tempted to smell their armpits in case they have an order they weren’t aware of. In other words, I wonder if that act of moving away makes the other person somehow self conscious.

So I sat there and didn’t move because in my own mind I’m trying to be nice. And then I began wondering further and casting doubt upon my thoughts. How could I be sure that the young woman beside me wasn’t asking herself, “Why isn’t this old guy moving to the other seat?” And other scenarios played through my head. They ranged all the way from complete unawareness of that empty seat, to mild annoyance, all the way to full-blown frustration on the part of the passenger sitting beside me. The thing is, I couldn’t tell. My attempt at even a small kindness may not have been viewed that way by her. And I became aware that I was projecting my own thoughts and some of my own insecurities upon this unsuspecting person’s thoughts. We do this all the time, often without even knowing it.

There’s little voice inside that Michael Singer calls the Inner Roommate that chatters at us all the time. It projects our thoughts, fear and biases on to other people. Generally these days people are more absorbed in their own world that others barely even register except when we ascribe malice to, perhaps, situational unawareness. I believe that very few people wake up intending to “F”up another person’s day.

My challenge to you is to try seeing your own thoughts and projections when you’re feeling self conscious or mad because somebody did something disrespectful. By doing so maybe you can reduce the amount of anger in the world just a little bit or add a little bit of understanding to it.

Choices

How do we begin to take control of our choices rather than life seemingly just occurring? Sometimes it helps to start small. I’ll begin with a hopefully short story about taking control with a relatively minor thing. Before I begin that I’ll note that these days I am often reminding myself, and others, that a series of smaller iterative steps is often more achievable than a “swing for the fences” approach despite a general “go big or go home” mentality. In the grand scheme I know the following is illustrative of a very minor irritant but starting small is often easier and can sometimes yield huge benefits.

I take the bus and usually I get a seat for the ride home. I began noticing that it bugged me that sometimes people sat with their bag(s) beside them so they were taking up two seats. This was irrational, I know. But it still bugged me. To this day I still notice so it isn’t like I am completely done with this. Now, simply noting my reaction was one small step. But then I began asking why it bothered me so much. It’s not as if it offended some social justice aspect in me because I’d never dare to actually say something to the so-called offending party. An answer was not forthcoming and I’m not sure one ever will aside from any aspects of other people’s possible inattention to the world around them.

Gradually I settled on acceptance of this situation by first reasoning that this disrespectful situation is my interpretation of events. In a situation like this there are two parties, not including any observers. Some people are okay with standing on a bus and it is not really my place to question their actions or inactions. Nor is it my place to question the seemingly oblivious person denying another passenger of a seat. Countless reasons could explain the situation and I have no knowledge of the mindset of either party to this small transaction. The sitter may have worked long hours and is so exhausted that they truly are on auto-pilot. The stander could well be a person who doesn’t make waves. If such a situation irritated me that much, beyond it making feel like a douchey social justice warrior, then I could have always offered up my own seat.

I still see such situations and sometimes it is me who is left standing. I note the young people who are absorbed in their phones. Sometimes I briefly pass judgement on how they seem to do this so there is plausible deniability – as in “I never even saw you there.” And then I remind myself that all I know is my own self and some days even that is debatable. Sometimes when I look around I see plenty of open seats and that is a reminder about choices and how it is best to accept other’s choices even if they seem irrational and unexplainable. To me they may appear that way but to others they may be perfectly logical.

And then this small step leads to other such steps. It leads to increased awareness of my own choices, not all the time, but enough times to make a difference.