Maybe It Does Pay Off
I've spent the past month deep in thought. I've meditated at least
twenty minutes every day, journaled daily, and I've studied Stoicism
like I've never studied before. I did everything in my power to find
comfort in those things while I processed my grief and contemplated how
I wanted to live my life.
The problem with going all in on
something so serious like this is you can get lost in it. I stopped
watching TV, reading, blogging, exercising and so forth. My life was
deep thoughts, all the time, without a break.
Despite having
written about this before, and repeating this cycle a hundred times
prior, I found myself a bit too deep and without a little joy and fun in
my life, eventually I started feeling bad. Things were getting bad
inside my head until the end of last week when I finally snapped out of
it. I spent the weekend relaxing as much as possible, watching goofy
90's comedies, and I didn't study or meditate at all. I just took a deep
breath.
Part of me wondered if philosophy was truly good for
me. I actually journaled out my experiences with both philosophy and
religion and came to the conclusion that I always end up a bit too deep.
I contemplated swearing off any serious contemplation going forward and
just trying to live a mundane, distracted life since maybe a pursuit of
peace is not good for me. Maybe I just can't handle such a concept.
After four days of stepping away from meditation and Stoicism I
was pretty happy with my decision. It's not like I saw immediate effects
from all the work I was doing.
Then, I did.
Out
of nowhere, I got a text that a good friend of mine found himself in a
very dark place. After spending some time on a suicide hotline, he went
to therapy, and was working on himself. Suddenly, as we talked, the
words of Marucs Aurelius rang out. While I didn't flood him with quotes
or anything, I do think some of my advice and comfort were enhanced by
all the time I've spent contemplating and studying.
Then this
morning I walked out of the house and something felt off. I reached back
down into my pants pocket and my wallet was missing. I'm not the type of
person who loses things, ever. I mean, I can count on my hand the number
of things I've lost in my life, so this is unusual for me.
I
didn't have much time to look but I quickly checked the laundry I did
last night to see if I left it in my pants (it's a super light front
wallet pocket). Then I glanced around my drop off station where I empty
my pockets and still didn't find it. I needed to get to work, so I went
out to my car and glanced around the parking spot as well as inside the
car, and I still didn't find it.
A year ago, or maybe even a
couple of months ago, I would have been distressed. I wouldn't have been
able to concentrate on work or even driving to work, because I'd be
retracing my steps and freaking out all day. I'd find excuses to rush
home from work on my breaks to keep looking and I wouldn't be able to
focus until I eventually found it.
Today, I drove to work
calmly. At the first stop light, I pulled out my phone and locked my
cards and then I drove the rest of the way to work. As I sat down, I
couldn't help but notice, this is not the usual Brandon response. Where
is all the anxiety, pressure, and self-abuse for being so careless to
have misplaced my wallet?
It reminded me of last week when I
was in the grocery store. I was in the self-checkout area with my small
cart when a lady came barreling into it with large cart. She smashed
right into my cart and just kept on walking. I looked over, moved my
cart closer, and finished scanning my groceries. On the way to the car,
I thought to myself, where is the rage? Why am I not mad about this? Why
am I not swearing to never go out again or regretting not ripping her a
new one for being so rude?
I've meditated off and on for
well over two decades, but never with any true consistency or length of
time. After a month of regular practice, I'm actually seeing results
which is startling to me. I guess, in some ways, I thought meditation
was a bit overhyped. Maybe I was wrong.
Going forward, I need
to balance this quest for peace and living authentically, no matter what
that looks like. I think it's time to just be myself, without judgement
and without constraints. Maybe that means a twenty-minute meditation
session following a King of the Hill marathon, or maybe it's writing
about deeper thoughts and following up that post with something about
some obscure 80's toy. I think I need to mesh my worlds, and stop
separating myself, my writing, my interests, this concept of who I am,
and the idea of who I want to be.
On a side note: I used my fifteen-minute break at work this morning to get a little fresh air. By the time I got back into the office, the pollen had done its work, and my nose was running. I reached into my back pocket to fetch my handkerchief and I felt something else in there. Yep... it was my wallet. I haven't used a back pocket wallet in almost twenty years, I have no idea why I stuck it back there, but I did.
Thanks to Eric, I ordered a Zike card to place into my wallet. I use a very thin front pocket wallet that you basically cannot feel in your pocket and there is no place for an Air Tag, so I'm glad to have a bit more protection than just the tiny Post It note attached to my driver's license.