Do Doing Done.

Posted by Aundra

Wanting to do something is a desire not a sentence. When I “decide” what I want, I translate my desire into a sentence and then follow the sentence; I take the desire out of my heart and put it into my ego. Asking myself, “What should I do?” brings to mind my habitual answers to that question, it brings in what the voices from the past would want to do, and it ignores the fact that there are probably no adequate words to describe where my heart is leading me this instant.

The configuration of most situations implies, through tradition, a corresponding emotion: We look at all we have to do and feel overwhelmed.  Our spouse flirts and we feel jealous. Someone takes the parking place we are backing into and we feel enraged. We are not invited and we feel slighted.  Added to traditional interpretations are countless other factors dictating how we should feel: the habitual responses we picked up from our parents, the mood we are in at the time, the attitudes of other people involved, the religious or ethical tradition we learned as a child. Thus, in reality, we can and do respond quite differently to the same provocation each time it occurs.

The “shoulds” in how I “should” feel conflict to the point of anxiety, which is how I feel much of the time. Only the stillness of my heart is consistent, and it does not dictate how to behave but merely how to see. If I want to clarify what it is I wish to do about the situation, it would be certain I know the difference between how I see this man and how everyone is telling me he is. I do not see Kirk as mature and sincere. How do I see him? Here I run into the problem of how I really see him versus trying to remain consistent with how I told everyone I saw him. I can be faithful to my image or faithful to myself.