if you start with yang, wait for the yin

assumptions, change, and time affect our lives so profoundly

It was a disappointing sunrise as we had colour for a whopping 4 minutes. The streaks were intense pink in two layers on the distant horizon but, after two and a half beautiful days in Florida along with a Carolina blue sky here yesterday, I assumed it would be a clear sunrise which this certainly was not. Another cloudy day, I disappointedly assumed.

Almost exactly 60 minutes later, one glass in my smoothie preparation touched—touched, I tell you—the other leading to six million (I don’t want to exaggerate) fragments as the aging vessel had had enough of touching anything. Nine hours later I encountered two additional largish fragments even following my husband sweeping and mopping after I swept the floor twice. Such a pain, somewhat dampening today’s smoothie production.

The wonderful young woman at the bakery either misheard or picked up the wrong loaf of bread for our Friday pickup. As you’ve learned from prior columns, nothing our local bakery makes is terrible but we expected ‘rough and ready’ so country wheat was a bit softer than we were hankering. Not cataclysmic but not what we anticipated.

I decided, not long after my husband walked in with the bread, to tackle the food processor that bedevils me. My friend Susan, service dog trainer beyond compare (no exaggeration, people), also mentors me. At new year’s she patiently showed me how to assemble and align the various pieces of the food processor to assure it would operate. I cleverly broke off a piece a week ago so I was trying to assemble with the replacement part. It…just…would…not…budge. I watched YouTube which is good enough that it should have helped me straight away but it was so frustrating that I decided I must have the wrong part number. The manufacturer told me to order a whole new bowl and lid to assure I had the correct model but I decided I deserved lunch instead. The onion for the soup could wait! But, the entire exercise was 45 minutes of irritation.

And herein appeared the magic of the day. As I so often learned in teaching strategy, we underestimate the role of time in so many things. We focus on the moment we want something—invariably NOW. We decide that if someone does not answer a question within four nanoseconds, that person dislikes (or worse) us. We think that a country of 80 million people will change its policies overnight because we can see a better solution if they will follow our strategic logic. We assumed that what we saw in 1970 with global temperatures and water levels was how it would always be despite scientists providing empirical models for why things would deteriorate; and we are, according to last night’s news, actually past the worst predictions fifty years ago but it all was ok in 1974.

We don’t see that time is not only a contemporary indicator but a moving dimension of processes, learning, forgetting, and so many other aspects of life. Buddhists stress impermance in life but it’s not the way Americans or westerners generally think of things. We, in particular, see ourselves in the United States as problem-solvers, assuming that by fixxing an objectionable condition, we can return to kumbaya, peace, and so forth. I have never seen kumbaya but have definitely figured it existed somewhere if I just addressed a change in some condition. Evidence manifold to the contrary, we forget that so many factors manifest temporarily to create happiness or disappointment or some other emotional state. Few things are permanent, in fact.

What usually has to change is our assumptions of success or failure. Pretty simple changes with profound effects.

This reality applies to foreign affairs, domestic messes, personal problems, the phases of the moon, and much—if not all—of our lives. A major reason is that actions create consequences and humans do lots of things qualifying as actions. I am not arguing we cause everything as other forces beyond our control certainly operate but our actions do alter some conditions.

Thankfully, when we look at the whole of any day, that precious 24 hours we have three hundred sixty-six times this particular year, things often move from disappointing to pretty fine when we step back from prior assumptions or reevaluate what we are pondering.

After lunch, I got the food processor to work. That sounds absurdly simple but I am incredibly bad at following directions. I finally picked up the three pieces in question, asked myself why on earth they did not fit together, then figured ‘how about another try?’ Miraculously (ok, for me), the food processor destroyed that onion in no time. (I am tempted to never wash the bowl again but let’s live dangerously by making me retrace my installation experience).

The bread turned out to be soft but I’d forgotten how much I like that loaf for a hummus, chipotle pepper and greens sandwich. It was excellent, in fact.

The clouds somehow disappeared into a spectacular blue sky, again reminding me that the light is changing so spring is indeed on its way.

I think back on the morning my kids would have called meh but it barely registers how disappointing or irritating it was. Time doesn’t heal the broken glass, of course, but it gives us time to contextualise things so we realise that the day is rarely as terrible as humans are prone to make it out to be. That ability to contextualise is a gift we must never take for granted.

Whether it’s Buddhism’s reminder of impermanence, time moving in some Newtonian or Einsteiner manner, a Higher Power deliberately moving individuals according to a grand scheme, or simply the actions we all initiate creating consequences, our perceptions of life evolve. Thank goodness.

Oh, and the clouds moved in as I wrote this column over the past ninety minutes. C’est la vie.

Thanks for reading today’s column. I welcome criticism, commentary, support, or questions from everyone. If you find it useful, please feel free to circulate this work. Thank you especially to those who support this work with their resources as I appreciate your confidence and interest so much.

Ok, truth be told, I did just pick another shard of glass from my heel (and I thought they were gone hours ago) but that is one less to bother me, eh? Be well and be safe. FIN