Cream Cheese, making wrong, and love.

I am in the kitchen, boiling the kettle to make a hot water bottle for that special person in my life, Rebecca. And I notice that the Cream Cheese is LEFT OUT ON THE COUNTER. UNWRAPPED. It is just sitting there. Not in the fridge. Not wrapped. I know that moments before she was making a cream cheese bagel, so SHE left it out. And I am reminded of all the complaints she has voiced about me leaving stuff out, or not rinsing the milk bottles, or putting plates in the sink. And here I have evidence that she does it, too! Fantastic! How can I use this to prove that I am right...

I will not call her up to have her take care of it. That is just not a tactic I condone, as it backfired on me when my parents did it to me. So I wrap up the Cream Cheese, and put it away, mulling over what I should do. I decide to let it go, and finish filling the water bottle.

A little while later, I am in bed waiting for Rebecca to join me. Her hot water bottle is cozying up the bottom of the bed. And I start thinking back to the Cream Cheese. I have the thought I could start a note pad and record the incident, as I know that if I don't, I'll forget, and in the heat of our next 'disagreement', I can bring it up as proof she is as guilty as I and she should get of my case. I also think of what other options I have. I can also bring it up right now, and point out her failing. But cozy though the bed might be, I know that I would get a cold shoulder should I go there. Or I could just forget about it. All three options seemed unsatisfactory. I looked some more and saw that in all cases, I was still making Rebecca wrong. It was just a matter of when. If I wrote it down, I would be storing it up and making her wrong in the future. If I tell her now, I would be making her wrong right now. And if I just forget about it, I am still left with having made her wrong in the past.

I had a real dilemma. Because making another wrong is the cause of distance between us, a loss of affinity and love. Yet how could I turn this episode around and generate love between us?

It would take a shift of my point of view. The fact is - the Cream Cheese was left out. I also know that I can count on Rebecca to clean up after herself, to reliably and consistently not leave the Cream Cheese out. I also know she is a very squishy human, and can make mistakes, like I do. I also remembered that while I was fixing the kettle, Rebecca was fussing over a spot that had been growing on my back, and she is very concerned over it, and that I should urgently get more medical attention on it, that it could be infected. I assure her it is not, and relate the various medical opinions I had already got to appease her, and I agree to get more attention on it as soon as the hospital can see me.

So I saw that in the space of her concern over me, which is ultimately an expression of love, she merely walked past the Cream Cheese in a haze of love and concern. For me.

Now I have the power to really put this in the past - there is no making wrong in that view of what happened.

By then, Rebecca had discovered the hot water bottle, and was cuddled real close. I shared with her my victory over the past, and my victory over making her wrong. After that, the hot water bottle was redundant...

Please (don't) drink and drive

There I am, driving along, minding my own business, thinking who knows what, and this sign zips past.

=========
DONT
DRINK
AND
DRIVE
=========
|
|

Suddenly drinking is on my mind, more specifically, drinking and driving. And I go to, 'I can do a little drinking and driving, I can be responsible.'

So what were you left with?

Consider that part of it is that it is an order, which may cause a modicum of resistance.

And part of it is 'drink and drive', exactly the result the message is trying to curtail.

The ultimate irony is that these signs are actually along the highway. Subliminally causing drivers to drink more.

As I am a fixer by personality, how can this be addressed? What I see is that the intent is to reduce drunk driving, and that the message has to be stated in a way that is a positive reinforcement. So how about:

"Driving sober saves lives"

or

========
DRIVE
SOBER,
SAVE
LIVES
========
|
|


This is not an order - it is a statement of observable fact. So both problems outlined in the beginning are addressed.

Your past, in your future

Things that come up after midnight...

Where does the future come from? Where does the present go?

It is pretty mainstream now to hear that only the now counts, that only this moment matters, that we can only experience the present. Which is fine, but I would like more insight into what, exactly, do I do, or do differently, knowing that *now* is all I have?

I've certainly done things in the now that I lived to regret. And I've regretted things I didn't do in the now - missed opportunities and the like. One could say I am learning to decide which of the many choices that I have in the moment I should pick to realize in that moment. I could use any number of criteria in making the choice, and it is obvious that those criteria are learned patterns from my past.

Given that those patterns are generated in the past, and used to choose what actions are taken now, then it follows that what will show up in the future is your past.

Now for some, that may be comforting.

And for others, a nightmare.

For me, it is discomforting to think that my future is going to look like my past. There are things from my past I have no desire to repeat. And many of the things I dream of have not occurred in my past, so how, then, can I generate these in my future?

The answer is to not make decisions based on my learned patterns acquired in the past.

What, then, is left to base those decisions on?

The only thing left is to base those decisions on the future.

A pretty tall order, it seems. And a little abstract. It certainly will take some training and development to practice this.

One trick I have created to put this into practice is to imagine there are actually three of me - my past self, me, and my future self. If I treat these as three distinct people, I get access to making decisions based on the future. I simply project what would make my future self thankful for the choice I make right now. And I reward my past self for the choices he made to get me the great life I have right now, and I am deeply grateful towards him.

And right now, I am going to practice this - my future self will thank me for getting some much needed rest, right now. Even if I think this post is not entirely perfect, yet.