Revolving Doors
While
I sit here in the lobby of this hospital writing, I see both happiness and
suffering pass back and forth through the revolving doors. Not only the
revolving doors of this building, but rather the doors we enter and exit
through everyday in life. I see the souls
of those that enter and exit today not as strangers or friends but rather as
brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers.
Their scales of suffering are no different than my closest family and
friends whom I have known for years. For instance, do I feel that my family and
friends’ marriage problems are any different than those of the couple that sits
right next to me? I think not. But we can all find the essence of the
suffering before we start pilling on the happiness in hopes to escape the
discomfort of suffering.
…
So
what was the essence of many of the “marriages” or “break ups” that I’ve
witnessed? Well, each are so different,
and only those involved in the relationship can really find the essence, yet
those outside can often have the ability to find trends or patterns. Sometimes,
the “outsiders” see trends and patterns more so than those on the “inside.” The
trends I see today are the times when things heat up in the kitchen, and we
scurry to get out. This “way out” is
unfortunately promoted by our society by way of creating other needs other than
the need to find out why the kitchen is so hot and what will help it cool
off. For example, we need a new or
bigger car. We need a bigger house. We need to spend and make more money, and
we need to take more trips. These are just a few examples that land on the
happiness side of the scale, yet the more things we add, the more time and
energy they demand. Whether the demand to acquire them or maintain them, there
will be less time to focus on why the kitchen was so hot in the first place. Maybe the stove was on. Now, there are just more things to burn in
the fire or break up. If these “happiness increases” have not already burned a
hole in your wallet, they will slowly start to turn another burner on, possibly
resulting in a new fire.
The more flames ignited, the less time
there is to work at transforming the suffering into the happiness. We can run from one fire to the next, but I
never knew a fireman who put out a fire by running in the other direction or,
at that moment, deciding he needed a new uniform, hose, and fire truck. Good firemen and women would figure out how
to use their brains as well as their bodies, and great ones feel the origin of
the heat and let this guide their decisions.
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