This is the second part of a post started yesterday.
Michelle was already busy working when Alex got into the office. Knowing she was having a freakout the day before, Alex had dropped by to see how she was today. “You’re in early!”
“As you know, there is too much to do.”
“I cancelled my yoga tonight. Thank goodness this only happens once in awhile.”
“Oh, hey, I tried your trick yesterday but it drove me crazy.”
“What drove you crazy?”
“Thinking about how this cohesive whole–this potentially amazing project–got reduced to little pieces by someone’s impatience.”
“Not impatience, aggressiveness. We don’t call an early bird impatient. He just wants the worm more.”
“Yes. She was a worm and she dug us right into the ground.”
Eee. Alex isn’t sure if clarification is a good idea. “Uh… in that analogy our boss is the bird, not the worm.”
“What. Ever. Can’t I just hate her?”
“Sure. I’ll save you some time. I’ll just put some poison in a bottle with her name on it.”
Michelle eyerolls. “It did not work. My thoughts were bouncing all over the place.”
“Okay, first off that’s not what I said I did. FedEx does not load a truck to go to the West End and then the North Side and then the South Side, and then back to the North Side and then back to the South SIde”
“Okay I get it.”
“Half their day is spent between where they really need to be. I didn’t mean spend all of your time between everything. Our fluid department was compressed by time and responsibility into a gas where all the molecules now have space between them. You just find the most important molecule and handle it. Then find the next most important and handle it. But yeah, bouncing between them and never actually settling in? That feels awful when I do it.”
“Well it felt awful yesterday.”
“At least that should keep you from doing it again today.” Michelle looks at her lamely. “Sorry.”
Michelle sits back in her chair and regards her friend. It’s a statement, not a question: “So instead of bouncing between all of these worries I pick the most important one and just deal with it.”
“That’s what I do, yes.”
“And that’ll make me feel better?”
“Why wouldn’t you feel okay if you did that?”
“Because all of that stuff still needs to be done.”
“That’s just you drifting between different responsibilities with your thoughts. That’s the thing you said you wouldn’t do.”
“That’s it?”
Alex almost feels bad. As though she’s really let Michelle down. “Yeah.”
“So these responsibilities are just… ideas, and me thinking about one, then the other, then another–that is what I’m doing that you’re not? You’re just not drifting between the gaps? You’re just staying on your molecule? And then you go molecule to molecule. None of the worrying…” Michelle started to seem buoyed by the idea. “Hmmm.”
Alex looked like she’s about to say something, but when she looked at Michelle something subtle had changed. There was now a certainty to her, as though Michelle’s posture itself is some kind of highly balanced yoga movement. Her voice sounds less uncertain and more confident the longer her realisation lasted. It seemed that she has gotten what she wanted the day before. So Alex just stepped back and grabbed her briefcase. “Have a great day Michelle.”
Michelle looked up, looking entirely unperturbed. “Thanks Alex. You too. Why don’t you come over for dinner on next week, when this haze has all blown past?”
“That sounds good Michelle. That sounds really good.”
peace. s
Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.