Forgetting

I don't really have the greatest of memories. I usually chalk it up to the fact that I'm generally trying to do too much at once. I don't necessarily mean at the exact same moment, but I often seem to have many projects on the go. But I like to be busy. I know what I'm like when I'm restless, and it's not good news.

So, I didn't blog last week. And I was thinking about it. And I asked myself the question, "when does forgetting something become a choice?". I forgot to blog a couple of days, but then I chose not to blog until today. I can forget to call my friend back, but after a certain number of times that I forget, it becomes a choice to not call them. I've had many opportunities, and I haven't done it. I do have a tendency to procrastinate, and sometimes my priorities get a little mixed up.

Just a train of thought.. Kind of lost where I was going with it. But here it is. Something I've been pondering.

Asking For Help

I'm terrible at asking for help. I would say I keep my ego pretty in check most of the time, except when it comes to me asking someone else for help. If someone offers me help, I make an effort to accept the help because I don't want to offend anyone, but even then sometimes it's a natural reaction for me to say no. I don't like the feeling of incompetence, or helplessness, and although I'm pretty friendly and outgoing, I really don't like sharing my struggles.

Even when I was a kid I was so set on being independent that I often made my own life much more difficult. For example, I wanted to learn to do the dishes and wash my laundry on my own so that I didn't have to ask my mom. So when I was about 6, I was using the washing machine on my own, and helping Brandi with the dishes. I got my first job when I was 14, so that I could buy the things I wanted.

So in the past few months I've realized that I still feel this need to be independent (of course living with my parents isn't helping this feeling). I quietly struggle through my conflicts, and I don't like to discuss them with anyone. And I've realized that sometimes this really hurts the people close to me.

You know the thing that I find the strangest out of all of this is that I love helping other people. I feel so good when I can bust out some idea or some useful skill and put it to good use. I even love when people choose to confide in me, especially if I feel like I can give them some helpful advice.

Is it pride or is it mulishness that's feeding my need for independence? I'd like to think I'm just too stubborn for my own good.

Synchronicity

I've been reading a lot about Jung's theory of synchronicity recently. I've always been one that believes in collective consciousness, or some would refer to it as collective unconcsciousness. I feel that there's too many times in my life where coincidence can't explain the things that happen.

So I watched an episode of, 'William Shatner's weird or what' where he examines the case of Kevin and Penny. Two people who against crazy odds both end up saving the other's life 7 years apart. I'm not going to get into the mathematics of this, because it takes a lot of equations into consideration. but the thing that I found fascinating was when they started talking about quantum mechanics, and how they believe it's possible for people to become quantum entangled. Meaning that two people can become entangled in such a way that anything that happens to one of them, is communicated to the other regardless of distance.

It just got me thinking about the direction my life has gone, and how sometimes it seems you've chosen a certain path in a specific direction, and somehow, it leads you back to the same people, or a place you didn't expect. I'm no physicist, but I think this is an interesting thought.

Today I read an except from Thich Nhat Hanh that I thought was very applicable.

According to the teaching of Interdependent Co-Arising, cause and effect co-arise (samutpada) and everything is a result of multiple causes and conditions... In the sutras, this image is given: "Three cut reeds can stand only by leaning on one another. If you take one away, the other two will fall." For a table to exist, we need wood, a carpenter, time, skillfulness, and many other causes. And each of these causes needs other causes to be. The wood needs the forest, the sunshine, the rain, and so on. The carpenter needs his parents, breakfast, fresh air, and so on. And each of those things, in turn, has to be brought about by other causes and conditions. If we continue to look in this way, we'll see that nothing has been left out. Everything in the cosmos has come together to bring us this table. Looking deeply at the sunshine, the leaves of the tree, and the clouds, we can see the table. The one can be seen in the all, and the all can be seen in the one.