The first scenario is how almost everyone moves through their basic experiences each day in an egocentric way. The second scenario is about staying peaceful despite those experiences. The differences are easy to see, easy to do, and the results are immediate.
You’re in a hurry. You walk into a bank. The line-up is long… Agh! Why is it every time I have to come here it’s lined up like this? Don’t they ever have enough staff on?
For six agonizing minutes you wait, repeating various variations of that story… Come on lady! Why didn’t you have all of that stuff organized before you got up there!? Now I’m going to be late to my sister’s and we won’t have enough time to pick up the cake. Great. And just watch that place over-charge us too. At least they use the money to pay some staff instead of this stupid bank.
Eventually you get to the teller and… Great, a face I don’t know so now they’ll have to do all of the authorization stuff to make sure it’s me. That ought to add about 10 more minutes of wasting my time. Damn these shoes pinch. Why did I wear new ones on a day I was going to be running around? What is this girl doing?? And thanks for coming to work with a cold lady. That’s just what I need. Maybe your day can afford you to lay around at night with a box of Kleenex but mine can’t.
Again, as the girl confirms your identity and carries out the instructions according to her new manager, you recite even more complaints about what you’re seeing as your situation. But she isn’t some lazy, dumb lady who came to work sick. She’s a competent manager at her daytime job but she’s also a single Mom with three kids and she’s working this extra job because she wants to make sure her daughter can go to a really good hockey school that’s important to her. But still she’s new so it takes her a bit.
Eventually you finish your banking, you curtly thank her while clearly indicating your dissatisfaction with her work, and you storm off to now take all that brain chemistry out on your sister and some bakers.
Or…
You’re in a hurry. You walk into the bank, see the line and realize it’s the end of the month. It makes sense that it’s busy. And your mind stays quiet. Because you’re in a state of being aware or noticing, what you don’t notice is the six minutes passing.
But you are aware that almost everyone in the line and behind the counters is sniffling and coughing. Clearly something’s going around. There’s some hand sanitizer in the line so you use it because you’re not sick yet and you’ll do what you can not to be. You can take a good guess at why the bank’s understaffed.
Eventually your teller comes up. You’ve never seen her before so you check her name-tag and underneath her name it says “Trainee.” Not that you really had any expectations, but if you did you’d change them here. You try to think of all of the ways you could use your knowledge of this monthly event you’ve done many times. You can probably help her remember the process. “Hi Sara. I’m Scott. I deal here all the time, I haven’t seen you here before, I take it by your tag you’re new with the bank?”
“Yes, I am. I’ve only been here a week. I apologize that I won’t be as fast as these other guys.”
“That’s okay, I was a customer here when most of them were in your shoes. No problem. We’re in this together. You just tell me how I can be of the most help.”
You can see her calm down when you say that. She relaxes and thereby accesses more of her own abilities and memories and so her service is much better than it would have been if she was tense. She carries out her responsibilities and thanks you profusely for your patience and you gratefully accept her thanks and also enjoy sharing a compliment of your own because she really did pretty good for a beginner.
You leave the bank in a happy mood and because you saved a couple of minutes you’re going to pass that mood on to your sister by getting her her favourite coffee on your way to pick her up.
Boom. See the difference?
One version of you—your ego—bombards you with words about things and it just judges and judges and judges always with an eye toward seeing only confirmation of what it already believes. And all comparisons will be made against perfection. Yes, you will have to use some language and judgments to be functional in society, but you don’t have to live in a state of judgment the rest of the time. You always have a choice about what aspect of which issue you choose to focus on. You either live in your thoughts or you be aware. You’re ego or you’re clear. It’s that easy.
Don’t eat your days away gnawing at your own thoughts. Let them go. Peace will flow toward you naturally. Invest your thoughts in loving, caring, compassionate and beautiful acts and the rest takes care of itself.
Now use your mind consciously and use that awareness to choose a better day for yourself.
Love you all.
peace. s
