Starting the New Job…

I thought I might report in on my most recent flood of Life Events, and the Experience that my heart and mind have turned those events into.

Day One of Brand New Job training, and have essentially never used Internet Explorer which turns out to be as important as knowing how to swim in rough waters: Within two hours I was so severely underwater and out of my element, that the escalation of pressure was reaching red zone already and I was rapidly drowning. Close of day one, I left with “the Voice”…what I used to think of as me, threatening me with all kinds of dire and dangerous outcomes. On the drive home, I listened…was kind, as one must be, when dealing with figments of one’s imagination…and kept control, despite the difficulty I knew was in front of me.

Day Two of Brand New Job training: Physical illness escalating, (I got really sick just before the job began – but they told us that no absences were allowed in training if you wanted to keep the job and I, most assuredly, wanted to keep the job). Now on third day, of no more than two hours worth of sleep, I tried in vain to keep up with the shear volume of information they were dumping.

Day Three of Brand New Job training: So while they were burying me in mountains of industry specific knowledge, I still couldn't figure out how to smoothly and efficiently navigate to the sites the trainer wanted us to go to, couldn't keep the six different password and user names straight, and apply them at the lightening speeds that everyone else could. The trainer, understandably, chose not to help me in terms of becoming capable of knowing how to navigate thru Internet Explorer, a wildly different animal than Mac's Safari browser, which I have been using for the last 15 years. It wasn’t personal…she expected that we would be PC and Internet Explorer capable…so, while data dumping an array of confusing information that was so industry specific that it was like suddenly waking up in Afghanistan and being told your life depended on trying to find your way home, thru hordes of hostiles, with a paper clip and a water pistol…I was in free fall and headed for the rocks. In the weeds and in deep trouble, with no MacGyver moves to apply to the situation and thereby save myself, with some clever chewing gum wrapper tool.

I reached out to the fellow sitting next to me, when I asked if he would help me, the first time he did so...the next time more reluctantly, by the third time he was actively misdirecting me. So I spoke to a woman who really seemed to know what she was doing and asked her if she would mentor me on the PC and Internet Explorer - she agreed - I moved my seat to one next to her and by question three she didn't want to help me either, she didn't throw rocks at me while I was drowning like the other guy...but she was clearly done supporting someone who basically didn't know how to do what might be considered the most basic forms of working with the machine and the browser. (If they had been dumped into Mac World, with me, rather than me dumped into PC world maybe they would have been the one searching thru a mountain of sailors knots trying to find the beginning of the rope pile, to save your life, while also under water and holding your breath….but wait, no, Macs are designed and constructed so that your Grandpa, who has never even seen a computer, could get on it and find his way to the website that sells his favorite brand of tobacco chaw, and two days later be chewing it).

Even this problem would have been surmountable if I had had even the smallest amount of time, to allow my brain to work its way around the problems...but no, the tempo of the class was beyond describing. Go here, do this, open that, find the other thing, go back to the first one, triple back to the fourth one, stand on your head, while walking backwards…and oh, by the way, I am going to play really loud and really obnoxious music, for the entire length of time that you are trying to find all this stuff. (I get that playing the music was smart conditioning, the capacity to concentrate with the volume turned up to a 9.8 on a scale of ten, is a condition of working on “the floor”…I could see that by watching the reps, just outside the door. So I understood, and even applauded, the depth of training and conditioning that was being supplied…that said, it didn’t help me save myself).

So that was what was happening on the outside. On the inside, my brain was overheating, (while also percolating with the streptococcus virus – it turns out). And imploding, with trying to understand what “you should be navigating with your tabs” meant, when the teacher walked by and dropped that in my lap with no explanation about where tabs were, what they were, or how to find them, or use them once found. Each time she redirected us and I was still trying to find the right password/user name combination, while every one else was at the appropriate site and already following her now third command about that site… while I was still trying to get across the threshold… my blood pressure would escalate, while my eyes were futilely searching for the right combination of keys that might unlock the door and let me in. All the while, embarrassment was flooding the shores of my interior, escalating every difficult physiological response I was having…let’s face it, no none likes being the dumbest person in the room…a situation I have not encountered since the pre-algebra class that I barely passed in ninth grade, and the very last time I put myself in that kind of no-win situation.

So under this kind of pressure, both external and internal, I scored an 82% on the “mid-term”. After the test, while the others were engaged in an activity, the trainer asked me to step outside and she told me clearly that she didn’t believe I would pass the final at the end, which is a condition of retaining employment. I uttered a mild protest by saying that I had gotten an “82 percent” on the test, and 85 was passing…”could it be that maybe I could catch up?”

Her response…”you scored an 81 point 17 percent”….oh, dear… I stand corrected.

She then gave me an out, because I started the class really ill, she told me that I would be able to get a Doctors note and restart the class at a later date. Which I am in the process of doing, even though - I now clearly understand - that working there, for me, would mean putting a square peg in a round hole, in a world class kind of way.

Please let me apologize for the length of that description…when what I really want to tell you about is what I learned and what is truly important…

The thing all of us face, without exception, is coming to understand what is outside and therefore external, and what is inside and therefore internal…and under our control.

Now you might think I have just stated the blatantly obvious, and you are mildly offended that I realize that you surely already know the difference between External and Internal. (Here’s the thing, if humanity really knew what is External and beyond our control and Internal and ours to deal with, there would be no war, no harm, no evil, and the loss of paradise would be a bad dream everyone had already woken up from.)

So, I really do think it is worthy of our consideration…

For instance, there are some 6 billion people on this planet…and thus there are 6 billion ways in which to entertain the notion of Spirituality….in the External. You might pray, genuflect, cross yourself, chop the heads off of chickens, shake your fist at a non-existent god, bring fruit to the ancestors, worship cows, or find the face of Christ in a tortilla…and in all of those myriad of processes, if we do not eventually stop believing in the outer and start understanding, that the pathway has no meaning excepting as to how it affects and effects the Inner self, then we will remain fundamentally lost…and in whatever form of personal hell we find ourselves in.

Your deep interior self, is the same Impersonal self that we all share… so paradoxically, there are 6 billion ways to get to One destination and only one.

A belief, idea, notion, hunch, conclusion, summary, synopsis, gist of, concept, scheme, impression, opinion, suggestion, proposal, brainstorm…or thought are all the content of your mind, and as such are illusions. They are born, arising from whence no one knows, and dying back to whence no one knows. The only life span they enjoy is the Attention we provided them with, and they possess no other reality save that one.

Does that mean that they are not capable of becoming a space rocket, or a hammock, or a pill, or a water cooler…no it doesn’t. When a new idea is born in the mind of man it comes as inspiration and has the potential to serve the greater good. When a thought is an opinion, like murder should not happen – even though it plainly does. Or, I should not have to suffer thru poverty – even though I plainly do. Or, he shouldn’t have done that – and he plainly did…then these thoughts have no relationship to reality and thus are a form of madness, which causes great and very unnecessary suffering.

So, okay, most everyone can agree that we harm ourselves by holding negative opinions…that we cause ourselves suffering when we think we are broken, or useless, or ugly, or worthless, but can you not see that holding a “good” or positive opinion is just as bad for us?

When I got my new job, I found myself slipping back into desire and planning and the future, something I know to be dangerous and I worked to get hold of myself and stop the illusions that began populating my mind and thus my heart. A kind and generous soul, offered me the guidance that I “deserved” to feel good about my “positive” change and the potential to ease my financial distress… that I should allow myself the pleasure of thinking these “good” thoughts.

I know the advice was offered in deep and true kindness, but I cannot allow myself to follow such advice…and here is why.

If I attempt to “positive think” my way into success or happiness or well being, I have merely relit the fire of the content of my mind and allowed the self to reassert it’s control and to take back the hard won freedom, I have spent a lifetime acquiring.

To believe my positive thoughts…is to believe my thoughts in general once more. I can only have this “pleasure” of believing my positive thoughts if I am willing to allow the negative thoughts the same hold on my reality. For every moment I spend believing my positive thoughts, the fundamental equilibrium of the Universe will be brought to bear upon my mind and I will be required to believe my negative thoughts for the same amount of time, intensity, and density…a price I am no longer willing to pay, pleasure is way to transitory and unstable to even begin to allow thinking to once more rule my life.

So I must guard my consciousness as rigorously with the “positive happy thoughts”, as I do with the negative painful ones…and what do I get in return for this constant and committed vigilance?

Uncaused Joy.

Transcending the self puts you in a higher vibration…in touch with an environment that produces Mastery and Elevation, Nobility and Gratitude, Tolerance and Commitment. A place unlike anything the content of your mind could even begin to provide. A place of peace, solitude, the gifts of solitude, stillness, silence, and grace.

So even as I failed spectacularly, and in public, my “self” did not reassert its control and I did not leave my body and project myself into a non-existent, and financially threatened future. Under considerable pressure, I leaned into my discomfort, danced with my confusion, held the hand of my embarrassment, courted my disability, and glided ever more deeply into the Impersonal Self and the Uncaused Joy it holds in escrow, waiting for me to reach out and grasp it.

It is nectar, and goodness, and wonder, and liberation, and bounty, and amazement, and emancipation, and release…to stop believing yourself and win back an open and unshackled mind, an empty stillness into which the Universe can place its order, and harmony, and simplicity, and kindness, and accord, and agreement…and most of all its Witness.

It took me a good long while to be willing to give up the negative content of my mind, but saving my physical life was hanging in the balance…it took me longer still, to know that I must give up the “positive” content of my mind. But now that I have, it has put wings under me… flight, and soaring, and lift. Who knew??!!

Adayre R. Miller

1/13/11

Photo courtesy of dca and flicker photo sharing www.flickr.com/photos/diham/3554329060/