December 17 - Lesson learned

What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

I have a hard time in the grey area. I prefer the black or the white, the good guy or the bad guy. I don’t understand contradiction, complexity or ambiguity. I love to quote Walt Whitman but do I embrace the true meaning?

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

I cannot give way when my strict rules are bent, I cannot accept that people may be both black and white, light and dark, yogis and car wreckers. It is hard to live in this complicated world when I want things to be simple. It is hard to allow others to be as they are when I portray them in iconic roles, square them into round holes, peg them as simple, when in fact they are not. No one is simple, no issue is black or white, the world is not flat, and we are both.

How will I apply this going forward? Ah this is a hard one…a core issue for me, to see that there are 1000 ways to skin this cat, 1000 ways to say snow, and my childish mind prefers the sheriff to gallop into town and make things right with a brandish of his pistol. I will lean into the confusion, stand quietly in the maelstrom, listen for my one true voice, and make room for myself and others.