When you believe you can no longer go on with your Life, when the odds
are stacked against you, when you feel you are up against a wall, when you vainly
wish you could simply fast-forward such a phase of your Life, choose a quiet
place and think deeply. Ask yourself: why is it that you feel you can’t endure
your situation anymore? Is the situation forcing you to want to give up or is
it your refusal to accept it for what it is? Be objective. Be practical. Be
honest. You will quickly realize that the situation is simply, well, a
situation. Let’s say the situation you are faced with is a broken marriage or a
phase of acute unemployment or a stifling legal quagmire or fourth stage of a
rare germ cell cancer or even something as common as a splitting, unbearable
headache. Is the situation the problem or are you, and your inability to deal
with it, the problem? Pain in reality comes without suffering. Your belief, expectation,
desire, wish, whatever, that it must not exist in the first place, as pain, as
a situation, is what makes you suffer!
Often thinking deeply about yourself and the way you are receiving
and responding to Life helps. But when despite that effort, when your mind
slips back into its default self-sympathy mode, it is perhaps a good idea to
zoom out and look at Life around you. Almost always, when you stop obsessing with
yourself__in sympathy or from grief__you will find how much more blessed your
Life is, compared to so, so many peoples’ lives out there!
This morning’s newspapers reported that Anand Jon, the India-born
fashion designer, who has been tried for fresh charges of sexual abuse this
time in a New York court, had been awarded an additional five years in jail. So,
that makes it 64 years in jail in all for Anand, with a Los Angeles court
having already awarded him a 59-year sentence. Anand is only 39. If we take
into account the years he has spent in jail so far, Anand’s got over 50 years
of imprisonment still left. Without going into the merits of his case, because I
am not entirely sure he has received a fair trial, I am just contrasting his
situation with the one I am faced with. And I can’t help but internalize these
two unputdownable lessons from his Life and my own:
- Even wishing a situation doesn’t exist is a luxury many don’t have. Anand Jon surely doesn’t!
- The only way to be free from suffering is to accept pain: Assuming his cases are not immediately reopened through appeal (at the moment, the family does not have the financial wherewithal to support this) in a higher US court, what other way does Anand Jon have than to accept his Life for what it is?
I have no idea how Anand Jon feels about his Life just now. His
last recorded sentiment in public is through a November 2010 blogpost. In that
he writes: “…I do
know that there is a Purpose to all of this and it is beyond my own
exoneration. God clearly had bigger plans for me than just influencing the
hemlines, and though I can and will win this ordeal, I may not survive it, and
this makes me concerned about the pain my loved ones will go through. It is a
fascinating concept that I think more about them than myself. My pencil (I only
get two per week) is running out of lead, so I also learn patience. Maybe
that’s what it’s all about – taming the ego and revealing love…” But, thanks to this
reflection this morning, I do have a deeper understanding of how to face the
Life that I have been given.
Maybe my sharing here will help you too to face your Life
situation with equanimity. Because wishing that a situation didn’t exist is what triggers the suffering. And simply accepting that it does exist, and that you
can’t do anything about it, is what makes it endurable. Some see this endurance
as the indomitable human spirit. Some see it as raw courage. I believe it is
nothing but an awareness of the humbling reality that you can never fast-forward
your Life. You have to live through some of Life’s grueling situations __
however long it takes. You can comfort yourself though __ that, like Anand Jon
says, along the way, you will grow to become more patient, more humble and more loving!
No comments:
Post a Comment