2003-09-26 - 5:37 p.m.
June 21, 2003
I just turned twenty-two and I don’t know what to do…
I have loved that line since I heard it shortly after turning twenty-two a few months back. It has, for some strange reason, not applied very well to my blogs. Before I am much longer twenty-two I would like to use it.
After two heavily emotional days that, I am sad to say, crashed down upon the heart of my beloved, I turned to the two books on my bedside for guidance out of my unnecessary rut. Typical female.
Shunryu Suzuki had this to tell me in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:
It is necessary for us to keep the constant way. Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine. If you become too busy and too excited, your mind becomes rough and ragged. This is not good. If possible, try to be always calm and joyful and keep yourself from excitement. Usually we become busier and busier, day by day, year by year, especially in our modern world. If we revisit old, familiar places after a long time, we are astonished by the changes, it cannot be helped. But if we become interested in some excitement, or in our own change, we will become completely involved in our busy life, and we will be lost. But if your mind is calm and constant, you can keep yourself away from the noisy world even though you are in the midst of it. In the midst of noise and change, your mind will be quiet and stable.
Whereas a few hours earlier Gideon offered this: 1 Corinthians 4:4-5.
Side by side the two passages seem unrelated, but both are equally necessary for my growth at this time.
In the first place I have been fortunate to have an incredible boss, one who understands just how to direct me: with affirmation and praise or telling me succinctly when I do wrong. This, however, did not prevent me from beating up on myself at the slightest suggestion that I made a mistake under the gaze of the nearest staff. I had no confidence in my performance getting Bill home. To show how bad I am to myself, Steven then told me he was more than impressed with my performance.
It is not for me to either praise myself or degrade myself to the degree I do.
