DECIDER Dharma

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."
~goethe

What a world of Possibility opens when we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming-- Choose your life... make it up and then make it happen....

Stuff happens day to day... stuff that's ugly, messy gritty and downright irritating. Stuff that's not fair, stuff that hurts, hurts as much as salt or lemon in a papercut that you didn't know you had.... stuff that downright sux....

Stuff happens... and its not that it happens---that causes our suffering... its that we cling to and identify with that suffering... case in point...

[original preachy story inserted here for illustration's sake. for the bottom lines, skip 3 or so paragraphs]

while walkin to work, one bright beautiful morning i came upon a beautiful gorgeous happy go lucky dog... S/He was runnin and rippin and tearin... doin just what liberated k9s do. LIVE in the moment, breathing mindfully every smell s/he could--oh, and pissin on the world for all s/he was worth.

In the blink of an eye, my heart stopped as I watched this bhoddisatva step squarely into the path of a car--- doin about 40+ mph. When the car slowed to a stop, (the driver'd never seen my 4 legged friend,) K9 seemingly lifeless, slid off the front bumper and in front the car. The heartless human got out looked at HIZ bumper, looked at K9 then drove off... no concerns about my friend k9 . K9 laid still in the street, for what seemed like an eternity. A samaritan or two began regulating traffic trying to make sure that k9 didn't get run over further. K9 didn't move but was breathing steadily in the middle of the street. Presuming K9 was a gonner,we began to contemplate what the most merciful action was... should we try to get someone to put him/r out of his/her misery? NO one had a gun, [thankfully?!?] but there were vehicles all around--- did it make sense to runn 'er over good, 1 more time and just finish the job?

As we contemplated definitions of mercy, while waiting for police and humane society and others to respond, K9 slowly, disorientedly rolled up from laying flatly on his/her side to just lying upright, with some growing alertness. As samaritans, we'd decided K9 was done for... we'd written but K9 hadn't agreed. To our amazement, K9, who had none of our ego based notions or fears, decided that while pain and soreness may have knocked th wind out of him/her, death hadn't captured him/her yet. Eventually k9 stood up, shook it off and went merrily though a bit more slowly along his/her way.

Team samaritan stood shaking its collective head. We'd seen the mess knocked outta this fellow traveler-- in fact it(the mess) was still lying there in the street...

It seemed clear-- -- k9 had a life to live, -- as unfair and stuff-y as being creamed by a car had been s/he had no intention of moping or dwelling on how his/her suffering defined him/her... K9 decided not to volunteer for sufferin... or make it his/her own.

BOTTOM LINES: K9 had hydrants to water and grass to scratch, cats and dreams to chase. K9 decided to be his/her pureland self -- regardless of what this timebound world threw at him/her. We each are the decid-er in our lives. We always have at least one choice even if its only not to choose.
~ttfn