Saturday, October 25, 2014

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I can lose my right speech really easily when describing myself.  My Buddhist teacher caught me at it today during our monthly study group.  I said was blind to something, when it would have been better to say, "Up until now, I've been unable to see the correlation between moving a lot as a young kid and being all too willing to accommodate my schedule to a friend's, even when it causes me stress or inconvenience".  She urges us to be specific, and doing so often restrains us from generalizing and judging ourselves. 

I have a habit of calling myself an idiot, mostly to amuse, but it is unnecessary.  I'm amusing anyway, ha ha ha.  I also describe myself as graceless and chubby and clueless.  Some of these adjectives are close to accurate, but I'm not telling you which ones, because, really, if I don't respect myself who will?  I'm so careful not name calling others, and pretty sloppy about myself.  I'm not a clown.  I don't need to pretend to be one to be engaging.  Yet the old habits persist.

Lately, I'm trying to describe myself as complicated.  I say I have a lot of interests and know how to entertain myself by myself.  I like a certain amount of privacy, but I also am very social.  I love kids but not for long periods of time.  I will watch almost any movie, but am snobbish about some films.  I don't want to waste my time and I thoroughly enjoy wasting my time.  If you want to get to know me it will take some time, and I'm a cautious person, so I won't reveal myself quickly.  But I'm worth the wait.

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