This Too Shall Pass

Before I started writing this, I was extremely hungry, a little agitated, and had to go to the bathroom. I figured I would get a few words down to feel a bit better about my writing progress. A blank screen is intimidating and at least this way I can say I started.

 

Well, as I am writing now and as the ideas and words are brought to my mind, I am realizing that the bathroom break I so desperately required, the hunger, and the agitation have all subsided in their severity. They are present and can be recalled, however they seem to be OK with where they are.

 

This occurrence, something we all experience, is fascinating and yet we expect each time a different response. We know that when we dwell on things, they become worse, or at least consume our thoughts. When we wallow in pain versus trying to improve the situation any way we know how, then the pain can be more severe, a situation worsening.

 

My bathroom break in the past has had to wait, 3, 4, 5 thousand words, that's almost another hour and a half, not counting if I try to do any editing. It's like when you're on the road trip, you have to pee, so all you are focused on is the next gas station/rest stop. All focus on alleviating the overwhelming need to relieve oneself. Yet, if your car hit a deer on the road, or a child in the back seat was throwing up, the body somehow finds room to store the extra liquid.

 

Not too be too graphic, however I find it necessary for the story, there have been times where by the time I finally got to the bathroom, my "flow" was continuous for over a minute. Fill a jug up with constantly pouring liquid for a minute and you will quickly see that somewhere in my body there was significant room made. My mind was distracted and by the time I realized I had to go, that was the result. I was distracted from the bathroom break, but stimulated, or focused on the present stimulus. Again, here it could be the writing, another time it could be eating, or sex, or other highly stimulating activities. I know I have a time or two thought about a potty break just to get to the gym, put it off for a bit, and almost 2 hours later remember that "oh yea, I had to pee."

 

Try and recognize this for things other than bathroom breaks. Think about pain management or emotional hardship. Think about the anxiety felt from financial strain or the stress of performing in front of people. Think about the traffic lights and how they work against you and that guy in the red Subaru sat through the last green light. Yes, focusing on his purposeful motive of making me late for work somehow seems to intensify the situation when instead I can look at the trees and how they are changing colors and Halloween is upon us which brings me that much closer to Christmas. Ahhh, Christmas is so nice. I remember as a child.... and just like that, I am on my way again, relieved of stress.

It's not an easy process, for if it was, "road rage" wouldn't be a thing. It is easier to dwell on the supposed wrong and to make it right. Flip the guy in the red Subaru off and ruin his day because he wanted me to be late. Yea, that'll make things right.

 

Again, my choice to do with the time and thoughts as I choose and some people might seem to "get away" with unfair things. However, over time, like a corrosive cancer living inside of you, indulging the negative, "making the world right" by your own accord, and making others "pay" doesn't do anything but reinforce a side of you that sees the revenge in anything. A negative pathway formed in the brain to seeing what is wrong versus what is good.

 

It's cliché at this point, but "This too shall pass," is the most logical thought one could have because no matter the stance of religion or science, things do pass, nothing thus far, as humans can tell, lasts forever. No emotion stays with us all the time and no matter how late an incident makes me for work, my fear of that is typically worse than the reality. Next time maybe I will just leave a few minutes earlier or think of Christmas the entire drive there, thus reducing my environmental stressors.

 

See, I wrote the whole thing and just remembered I still have to go to the bathroom.