Posts Tagged ‘free meditations’

While in the doctors’ waiting room recently, an African American woman walked by, her stunning silver curls cascading down her back.  The woman next to me commented to her how beautiful they were.

She replied by saying, “Thanks. But they just told me I’m going to lose all of it.”

“It will grow back,” the women around me chimed in reassuringly, “It’ll come back.”

Another waiting room held a young mother sobbing as she retold her recent diagnosis to a friend.

When they told me I had two masses in my breast, all I thought of was my children. They deserved to have their mother with them, caring for them as no one else would or could.

Later I thought about how much of our energy we dedicate to the wrong people, and how that frustration and disappointment steals from our health and our loved ones.  I thought of two problem people, one, an associate who had a profound problem with lying.

I had watched her lie on countless occasions, to me and others.  A little embellishment here, a lie of omission there, a flat out farce when she felt it necessary to position herself in a better light.  She never knew I noticed.  “She wants to change,” I would say.  But apparently that was just one of the lies I told myself to keep everything copasetic, pretending that this wasn’t who she was.

Ah, the lies we tell ourselves.  Those are the most pernicious of all.

‘It won’t happen to me’  ‘He/She would never do that’  ‘Just this once, it won’t matter‘ and the all too familiar, ‘They’ll change.’  We lie to ourselves all the time and bit by bit we separate ourselves from what is most important.

“People don’t change,” a friend of mine told me years ago.  I thought about that now as I realized how much time I had spent feeling upset about this.  I decided I needed to find the strength to let her be who she was choosing to be.  Almost immediately afterwards, several people came into my life.

They each shared with me unsolicited stories of how this same person had lied to them on countless occasions. I was amazed at how the Universe had brought them to me, to relieve me of my doubts. They too had broken off their relationships with her because of the lying, the unrelenting self-centeredness and the continual competing.

“It was exhausting,” one woman told me, “and so unnecessary. I never confronted her about her lies.  They were subtle most of the time.  But I realized I couldn’t waste time expecting her to be different.  You know, who needs it?”

There are many times when we have to let someone go.  But most of us are slow to do it.  We want to give people a second, third and fourth chance to do the right thing.  And sometimes we should.  Other times, and perhaps ultimately, we all need to pay closer attention to our proverbial smoke alarms.

A study was done in Forbes magazine years ago citing the number one failure of CEOs – they didn’t let problem employees go soon enough. Then they had to spend too much time and money cleaning up their messes on the back end.

It may be hard to let problem people go from your business, your life.  But think of it this way, by letting them go, you’re being compassionate. First toward yourself and your loved ones through respect, they don’t deserve to play second fiddle to self-centered jerks.  Secondly, by letting them be and letting them go, you’re being compassionate toward the offender, being an enabler helps no one.  Once we know who someone really is, we’re responsible for that wisdom. And we need to do what’s right by us and by them.

We can mourn the loss of those we’ve cared for, for those whom we’ve had high hopes. We can embrace compassion for the difficulty they’re setting themselves up for.  But we can’t change other people.

Our lives are precious, as is the short time we’re given. We have to keep that in mind when we’re choosing how and where we dedicate our precious time and energy.

In doing so we free ourselves up to live happier, more successful lives.  Through our compassionate distance, we free others up as well.

By the way, my condition turned out to be easily remedied, but several women I saw that day weren’t as fortunate.  If you’re a woman, make the time for your breast exams and mammograms, take your D3, eat healthy, exercise, and be judicious with where you invest your time and energy.