The Monastery II

My experiment with awareness breaks throughout my busy day continues. While I can not say that I now calmly sit in the center of the storm that is my work or that I never lose my temper over someone else's silliness, I can say that I seem to be quicker to catch myself when I start to respond from a place of ego/anger. Today, for example, I am not feeling well. My neurological issues are taking center stage since I have not had enough sleep and they are manifesting as pain and numbness in all sorts of interesting places. I had to speak to a person out in the field this morning and found that I was a little severe with her so, after some reflection on this interaction, I decided that today was going to be another of those days when I chose to speak only when spoken to. Now, I have done this before and, in fact, I am pretty sure I noted a similar action early in this blog. The difference is that this time I did not actually go off on someone. Instead, I was able to step back, look at an annoying interaction and see that I just was not (and am not) in a place to be dealing with people today. Fortunately, I have a job that allows me, for the most part, to hold people at arm's length (via email and messaging) if needed. I know that some would accuse me of ducking the issue, of conflict avoidance etc etc. My response is simple. Part of working in the Taoist tradition involves understanding your essential nature. One of the things that I know about myself is that, while I can be sociable if I have to be, essentially I am an introvert. Interacting with a lot of people drains my batteries and, if I am not feeling well, that problem is exacerbated. So, if I realize that I am not feeling prime physically, why should I place myself in situation that I know will cause what the Buddhists like to call afflictive emotions? In this case, I see my strategy as a way of strategic retreat so that I can continue on my way relatively unscathed.