Today I want to talk about that friend who is always five minutes late. You might be that friend. You might have that friend. But if you look at the history of your friendship, this person has (fairly reliably) shown up for your commitments to each other about five minutes late.
That’s reality.
I don’t know who is running the show. I don’t know if it’s a divine being, divine consciousness, science…who knows? Regardless of who is running the show – that friend realistically, in reality, is always late.
We can do different things with that. We can accept that reality and show up on time and then wait five minutes. We can show up five minutes late when we think that they’ll arrive and then enjoy our time with them.
But we like to run around feeling like we’re running the show, because we have all of these “supposed to” thoughts. People are supposed to be on time. And when we want THAT reality (despite the fact that we see the reality that IS), when we attach to a thought like that, feelings come up of frustration, feeling disrespected, or whatever.
It’s not the reality that we’re stuck to, because the reality is very clear and irrefutable. We’re stuck to the “supposed to” reality that we’re making up in our mind. But we’re not in charge of this show, right?
This gets really painful when we’re stuck to difficult reality thoughts, like…
I’m supposed to be in a romantic partnership.
I’m supposed to have a baby.
I’m supposed to be a hundred pounds lighter.
I’m supposed to have that promotion.
I’m supposed to make that amount of money.
When we have those thoughts and reality shows us something different, then we have all kinds of difficult feelings like sadness, grief, and self-judgment.
It’s kind of hilarious that we do that, because there’s the reality of what’s happening. We’re not in charge and we can accept that. Then there’s our own reality in our mind. And we don’t have evidence that that’s true, because if we were supposed to be in a romantic partnership right now, then we would be. That would be our reality.
We allow that thinking to determine who we are and how we feel, how we think, and what we believe about ourselves.
If we were simply able to turn off those thoughts and to accept the reality we have before us, then we get to come at life with a level of freedom. There isn’t lack because of the misalignment between what we think is supposed to happen and what is happening. That part goes away.
We can still take action. We can still move forward towards things we would like in our lives, but we’re not fighting against reality anymore. We’re accepting what is and choosing to move a different way.
Next time you are waiting for that friend who is five minutes late, think about how you can approach is differently.
Who would you be if you were able to accept the reality you are being shown as opposed to the reality that is happening in your mind (which might not line up with what you are seeing)?