Wow. This is our penultimate post. We only have one more meditation after this. I can't believe we're here. What a small weekly amazing journey this has been.
And as I'm writing this the world is facing a huge pandemic with Cornoavirus. My own company has moved to fully working from home and (making some sort of Internet history by) having meetings remotely. Toilet paper and hand sanitizer and faces masks are hard to come by. A lot of elderly people and those with health challenges already are getting very sick and many people are not making it. So, it's a very scary time with a lot of disruption and anxiety for people (not just regarding the virus but their jobs and all of life's schedules and plans being overturned).
Image at the top of the post is from FatCatArt. Go there for some cheer in these dark times.
So what an amazing quote came up in my list of quotes today. I'll never stop being amazed at how apropos some of these weekly quotes have been.
The Prompt: Challenges
This week's prompt:
"We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us."
– Epictetus
First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.
The Drawing
My Haiku
…inspired by my drawing:
Turn and a mountain!
Gift of stones or the bar against
Dreams of mountain.
The Reflection
Of course there are some challenges that should be respected as real challenges and absolutely sucky things: anything to do with war or similar violence against people. And coronavirus. But that still leaves a whole mess of challenges we overreact to, challenges that we feel we can't overcome, mountains we can't climb. My M.O. as a kid was "Oh no, I can't do that!" Failure seemed too heartbreaking to bear. And then later I learned a lot of good outcomes and knowledge result from the disastrous and hilarious ways we deal with challenges– if we look at them in a positive light. And if we have a sense of humor about the results. This has helped me do many a household maintenance project I never would have believed I could do: calking, plumbing, wielding a leaf blower. I can tell you I curse every draw string I've had to pull out of a hoodie that just got out of the dryer and I have not mastered even simple sewing. But how small these things look in the face of a word like pandemic.
So fascinating to me that toilet paper is the thing that flew off the shelves at Costco before food. We're shitting our pants way too much due to fear and stress, instead of good fiber products.
It's your second-to-last turn! How exciting!
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