We want to live intentional lives, and we can. There are times for almost every one of us when we think we are doing better than we actually are. Have you ever suddenly crashed and burned, and then after some reflection realized that what felt like a sudden collapse had actually been slowly assembled bit by bit without your fully realizing it? It could be something huge like a husband or wife suddenly shouting that they want a divorce, or it could be a much smaller thing like your computer crashing and losing a file you had been working on. Sometimes we find that we have not been managing as well as we have been telling ourselves that we have been.
I knew that things at work were going to be busy from the beginning of the day on Friday. I had needed to change classrooms the day before because the projector in my usual class room was not working. I’ve integrated media into all of my classes, so having a functioning computer, projection, and sound system are important. The substitute classroom I had used the previous day would not be available, and the secretaries had not tracked down a free classroom by the end of the day Thursday. As I went in to work on Friday, I knew I’d have to find the new classroom assigned to me and get the computer set up before my ten o’clock class. I was prepared for a busy morning, I thought. I also thought I was managing very well. When I arrived at work, the secretaries told me they had put me and my very small group of students in a large lecture hall, but I could deal with that. I went down to assess the classroom and check the status of the computer. I walked down the steps of the cold empty hall trying to decide how strict I was going to be if the students decided they wanted to scatter themselves about in a space with more than ten times the number of seats we needed. I arranged my things around the computer podium and set to work. I got the projector turned on, but the monitor of the computer stayed pitch black. I tried turning off the computer and rebooting it, but though the computer tower was clearly working on something, the monitor was not receiving any signal. I tried checking several things, and called my department office. They sent a work-study student to double check, and then they tried to track down yet another classroom for me. By now my preparation time was running out. I went to the new classroom, asked the student who had been helping me to change the note on my original classroom door telling students where class would be held, and started getting the yet another computer loaded with the program I use and checking my other files. I got set up with moments to spare before class started. I felt a little rushed, but I was pleased by how well it seemed I was doing.
Class went better than I thought it might have gone. Students accommodated well and followed along with little distraction. I didn’t even feel the desire to reprimand or correct anyone. I was relieved when I saw that the students had gathered together in a small group as they had seated themselves in the large hall. I was, in fact, feeling proud of myself for keeping focused on solutions because the afternoon was also going to be busy with various tasks. If I had slipped into habitual resistance, negativity, and blame, the rest of the day would have surely spun off into a series of mishaps and misadventures. Feeling pleased with myself, I went up to my office, just a little late, for lunch. I finished eating about twenty minutes later than I had hoped, which made me begin to wonder if I needed to replan the rest of the day. I decided that, even though I was a little behind, I had left enough leeway for just such an eventuality. I was walking to the restroom and decided I’d take a quick peek at Facebook for fun, when my phablet (phone/tablet pc) decided to have a seizure of some kind. The screen froze for a minute to two and then went completely white. Not only was I not able to return to the home screen, but I couldn’t get it to either restart or shut off at all. I closed the cover and it still glowed bright white for a few minutes, and then it went completely black. At first I was happy to see it finally shut off, but then I couldn’t get it to turn back on. I pressed the power button, several times for several different lengths of time. I tried to plug it into the charger to see if that would get it going, but nothing was happening. I was more pleased than usual that I had loaded a couple of my messenger applications onto my desktop computer, because I was able to contact people that way to let them know I was not able to use my phone. I was now trying to figure out how to include a stop at a phone service center into my list of tasks for the afternoon. I also began to notice how what had seemed like a focused attitude in the morning had quickly devolved into a somewhat desperate determination to keep on top of things.
I first needed to go to the post office to post a parcel to the Philippines. I then had to get to an appointment at a hair stylist because this had been my window of opportunity to get that done. I had located a service center a couple of subway stops away from my appointment, so I thought I could hop down there and hopefully get my phablet looked at quickly before I had to be back at school. As I was walking to the post office carrying a large box, I felt the pull of conflicting desires. People were looking at me in odd ways because I surely looked out of place walking down the street in my suit carrying a large box. I felt the pull of the desire to hide from their gaze and the desire to stare back at them defiantly, challenging them to make some comment. In the back of my mind, I felt the tickle at the back of my mind of the knowledge that the only source of criticism and hostility was my own thoughts, but that perception was not fully registering yet. As I strode quickly down the street, I did begin to realize that I did not like the way I was feeling, and I remembered that I always had the ability to choose another reaction. I wanted to feel happy. I wanted to enjoy walking in the warm sunlight on a brisk winter afternoon, but that feeling was still out of reach. I could, however, gradually shift to a more neutral feeling, I told myself I could begin to let go of the increasing anxiety and find dispassion or even dullness. That would at least be a shift in a better direction. As I walked, I tried letting go of everything but the thought that all was well. I didn’t quite believe it yet, but I tried to find a kind of detachment. And when I got to a more neutral feeling, I tried to move step by step in the direction of more positive sureness that all was indeed well. I felt the sun on my face and tension slowly slipping out of my muscles.
When I got to the post office, I could feel that I had already moved quite a bit in the direction I wanted, however I could feel anxiety tickling the edges of consciousness as I filled out shipping labels and started to wonder how much time this would take and if I’d get to my haircut appointment on time. I felt a tingle of anxiety and let it go. And then I felt it again and let it go. When I got the documents filled out and took a second number from the machine (I had missed the first number I had taken) I looked around at how well things in the office seemed to be running and that people seemed to be efficient today. When I went up to the counter, and one clerk handed me off to another, I decided for myself that she was doing it for my best interests, and ended up having a very good experience with the second postal clerk. As I left the building, I thought I’d check my phablet once more, and was very happy to see that it had finally turned itself on. It was working just fine. I noticed I was going to be about five minutes late for my haircut appointment, but happy that I would probably not have to go to a phone service center, I called the hair stylist to tell her I’d be about five minutes late. She was fine with that, and when I got there, I had a very good time with the woman who was giving me my cut. I learned a lot more about her during this appointment than I had known before. I found out she had spent a few years working with some big name singers and other entertainers in Korea. I told her about my trips to Italy and how much I love the people, food, architecture, history, and spirituality of the country. After my hair cut, I walked to a clinic to get a flu shot. I had really needed to get it that day to have it in full effect for my trip abroad. The nurses were a little cold at first, but my good mood was pretty stable by then, so it didn’t affect me much. By the time I was paying my bill, they were smiling at me and happily showing me where there was a mirror so I could retie my tie properly.
I got back to school and closed up shop for the week. When I left for dinner, I was feeling pretty happy, and the people I interacted with the rest of the evening mostly reflected that feeling back to me. The women at the bakery I frequent beamed at me and carried my bag for me to the door. The clerks and cashier at the supermarket smiled and spoke very kindly to me; they were also very helpful. I was no longer trying to control my direction, but naturally flowing down the stream in the direction I intended.
Even after years of meditation and self-observation, there will be times when stress and anxiety will fly under our radar undetected. Though we can’t see it directly, we can often detect it in the odd out of kilter things that seem to spring up. Those discombobulated events will increase in frequency and intensity until we recognize our unnoticed emotional state. The good news is that when we recognize it, we always have the option to soothe ourselves. We may not be able to get happy immediately as both Judy Garland and the Partridge Family sang, but we can definitely move in that direction step by step. The shift from anxious to happy may take hours, days, or more, but in many instances you might be able to make most of transition in a few minutes. It just takes a habit of self-awareness, some tools to help you release resistance to what is, and some experience with making the shift. Every one of us has that power and potential. And with some tools for achieving that potential, we can increasingly live our lives expressing the qualities of our eternal Selves: Love, Joy, Wellbeing, and Awareness. We will be living intentionally.
