Well, last night the universe offered up a great chance to practice my Serenity Vows post-Alaska.
Around midnight I received an email that was … what is the technical term again … bananas.
Inappropriate. Weirdly off topic. And clearly from someone having a breakdown moment.
[Also someone I haven’t seen since 11 years who lives on another continent and who has almost zero impact on my life.]
And yet … it was still upsetting.
There was the overwhelming desire/need to explain the reality that 99.99% of the world shares –– even though I have almost nothing to gain –– but somehow I managed to let that go and simply not respond. [I do want to stress that this was perhaps the most weirdly disconnected to reality emails I’ve ever gotten.]
What was fascinating to me though is that yesterday was a spectacular day with real and important triumphs for career and business stuff, and on an interpersonal level, full of connection and even synchronicity (Clark and Val were speaking about how they needed to consult with me and within minutes we ran into each other walking on the San Francisco streets, me carrying a six foot roll-up canvas from a casting session I’d been invited to.)
And yet, suddenly all I could think about was this unexpected, inappropriate, and obviously crazy communication from someone who really has no impact whatsoever on my life.
What an opportunity to deliberate focus, especially on the 99% of my life that is working versus the 1% inter-continental part that is not.
And interestingly –– because even though I felt deeply compelled to respond, the stakes were fundamentally just so low –– I was actually glad that I had a chance to practice regaining my serenity and selecting my focus, rather than explaining to someone at best incidental to my life the rules of email etiquette that every 12 year-old in America knows.
A quiet triumph of non-response and shifting focus ––bolstered by writing in my new Appreciation Notebook over 2 glasses of Pinot Noir at Don Pistos, of course.
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Wow. I’m gonna Single White Female you again and tell you that at about 3:30 AM this morning, I wrote a response to someone I haven’t seen in 8 years but who has been writing super long messages to me on the Faceplace…asking and giving advice, links to websites, picking apart every one of my FP posts. For me, the opposite was true. I felt like I *had* to say write a response about how I was feeling the sudden barrage – overwhelmed. Not known for being one who communicates his feelings, this was huge for me. xxoooxx
Also, my life is pretty much faery tale awesome. So, like in your case, this is a chance for me to be present and focus on all the amazing things happening around me…