Not Getting

It is nearly a year since I left my corporate job. It struck me this morning that who I am in terms of what I am trying to \”get\” out of life has changed.

I was for the first time today able to see clearly how much I was trying to get out of the corporation and its bosses. Stuff like recognition and self worth. As a corporate engineer, I was wrapped up in the corporate culture, criticism of what the bosses were doing, being angry because I had no place to grow to. Even on the weekend when I did my long runs, my brain was taken up with resentments and anger over work.

I was not able to just sit in a cushy corporate job and collect money but slowly die to creativity and hope for the future. I wanted something more, but I couldn\’t \”get\” it from the corporation. Now, I accept that my modus operandi: my career was about making money and I quit it as soon as that task was completed.

In the past, my feelings of success were dependent on what other people thought of me and what they were willing to reward me with. Success at work was huge to me. I only felt successful if I was winning at work. But now, I have nothing in the material world to hang a successful feeling on. It is impossible for me to be pointed out as successful because there is nothing there. This lack of exterior conditions forces me to either feel good about myself simply because I exist, or never feel good because I\’m not in situations to garner praise and rewards.

Now, whatever it was which I was trying to \”get\” from the corporation has been forgotten. I don\’t have any expectation of  being promoted or given a raise as a means to help me feel validated or wanted. I have no expectation of being asked to do special projects because of my expertise and using these to bolster my ego. Along with the loss of expectations is the ending of trying to wrest anything out of life.

I am more or less a free bird, living one day at a time. I think I don\’t have a purpose driven life. If I want to be validated, or feel better, I do it for myself. My happiness is not dependent on bosses at work but on my own seeking for good thoughts about myself from the inside. If I want to feel better then I am self responsible for finding those thoughts from the inside.

If I have a purpose, it is to allow instead of try to get. I\’m learning to be an allower instead of a getter. I am not dependent of some corporation or its bosses to validate my worth or give recognition. I have no recognition to achieve. I am merely alive.

Spiritual study has been a part of my life for decades. For a long time, I was trying to get enlightenment from God, and mad that God had never given it. Even that type of getting is gone from my agenda. I have entered a way of living where I allow whatever is going to happen to happen. God does not have to give me enlightenment today.

So who am I really? Being. I am just Being.

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A Family of Answers

I understand gratitude. I don\’t understand the slaughter of billions of turkeys for gratitude. I don\’t understand the horrible circumstances in which those turkeys are grown; or the tremendous resources that go into their lives.

And even the poor show up at the kitchen and expect a feast.

There are questions which require a family of answers, not just a short sound bite. And I can\’t usually explain all the facets of anything all at once since I don\’t carry all the information in my buffer memory. 

Why are you a vegetarian?
Why do you think the Bible is not true?
Why do you not agree with denominational Christianity or that \”Jesus is the son of God?\”
Why don\’t you vote?
Why don\’t you celebrate holidays?
Why don\’t you watch TV?
Why don\’t you fix your hair? (Really?)
Why are you single?
Why don\’t you develop friendships?
Why don\’t you drink?
What do you mean by \”not participate in society?\”
Why do you spend so much time alone?
….the list goes on….

I am in a strange circumstance: success. I had an out-of-the-blue idea which I \”sold\” to the manager of our plant, who then asked me to sell it to his leadership team. And now, having been adopted, it has gone public in a plant of 800 employees, 1,000 contractors and massive quantities of dangerous substances. The purpose of the idea is employee engagement; which should above all else provide better safety as we work to produce products.

But for me, at this point, it would be usual for me to say something egotistical which over steps my bounds as a low level employee playing with the big boys for once. I end up ashamed of myself though maybe no one else noticed what happened. I want to continue to be guided by Spirit/ intuition/ love; not false ambitions or the getting drive.

The getting drive.
The getting drive.
More for me.
Somebody reward me.
Somebody make me important.
The small self.

Defeat of the small self is a good reason to do endless laps. Such a useless activity, but it draws my mind into endless quiet. Voluntary poverty of ego. Downward mobility of recognition.