Acceptance

Today I stumbled on a quote I'd saved in my old cell phone. I can't remember who said it, but I have a feeling that it was said in a movie. Normally, that would make it cheesy and of less value, but this time I was moved otherwise.

The quote is a definition of the word 'Forgiveness'- "Giving up the hope that the past could have been any different." Now, putting aside dictionary definitions and Biblical commentary, I find this to be a wonderful life philosophy- to accept the fact that the past is exactly that- gone. It's important to me because I'm in a 'take it easy' phase of my life; the purpose of this phase is to allow me to accept life's curveballs with grace, to not be perturbed or aggravated by negative happenings, but rather to roll with the punches.

Life takes no timeouts. It doesn't stop to allow up to get over ourselves, or whatever it is that's eating us up. So the best resort is for us to learn to take it easy.

One of Jamaica's big problems in this day is how angry a people we are. The causes of this and whether or not this anger is justified are different matters for a different time. But there's no doubt in my mind that this anger feeds the violence we struggle with everyday. Things would be so much better if people learned to take it easy.

I'll give an extremely simple example- the other day I was on my way home from work, in a JUTC bus. A lady stopped the bus on Hope Road. The bus stopped, the driver immediately opened the door to let passengers in, and for some reason delayed by about 4 or 5 seconds in opening the exit door. Apparently, 4 or 5 seconds was all it took to make this lady snap... "Driver, open the door nuh!" And then she hissed her teeth, and mumbled her way out of the bus. I laughed inside at the overblown, unnecessary actions of a lady who, no matter how much stress she'd experienced in hours previous, was no more inconvenienced by the 5-second delay in her afternoon plans.

Conversely, I related to C Moan how one day (in fact, it was the day after the bus incident) as I walked to along Trafalgar after work, a driver sped by and splashed quite a bit of mucky water over my clothing. He didn't soak me, but he got me pretty good. I impressed myself with my reaction; I paused for a millisecond and observed my clothes, and then I just kept walking. I didn't even glance around to view the car or driver that had wronged me. My immediate mental reaction was, "Well, I'm wet, it may or may not leave a mark, the driver's about his business... Ah well." Most people wouldn't be this kind about it. I can hear some of the expletives now. But what good would it all do?

So what I'm getting at is that we need to, for our own sakes, be able to handle the little bugs life squashes in our faces. There are too many negatives around us for us to allow ourselves to be dragged to the pits by them. I'm working on it for myself and the people around me. It would be great if I could pass it on.