Two more for the record

Chicken Little

“The Sky is Falling, The Sky is falling, and we have to tell the king.”  And they all go running about creating panic and reveling in the drama.  The number of people using this as a way of life is truly amazing.  Create chaos to focus on, and avoid facing the important truths about yourself and your life.  It is entirely possible to live your entire life in this way and never address what is important unless it comes and hits you upside the head. 

There is a secondary version of Chicken Little syndrome headed up by what I call “The Get Ready men” I got the term from James Thurber’s book “My Life and Hard Times.”  He described the man who drove around in a car with a megaphone shouting “Get Ready, GET READY, THE WORRRRLD IS COMING TO AN ENDDDD.

There seem to be more and more times and places where get ready men are running around shouting about the end of the world.  The latest date seems to be 2012.

The problem with that is that it becomes very hard to tell when we should be listening and how to tell when something needs to be addressed.

I lived with someone who had Chicken Little syndrome.  At one point he called me in a screaming panic because the under sink pipes had disintegrated and the dishwasher was running.  He needed to shut off the circuit breaker before the drain cycle.  I could not get him to shut up and listen long enough to guide him through shutting off a switch that was on the wall in front of him.  
Learning to flat line the drama and take care of the mess of life is a hard task for people who want to address every need with "When in worry when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout" ( Ogden Nash).
People who don't participate in the chicken little drama are very disappointing to those who do.

Compost

There are seasons of the soul.  They seem to run at about double speed to the year.  There are times where your creative juices flow and you work on projects and things come together. Then after the seed time the fruit and flower and the harvest, comes Compost when things begin to wither and decay.  Compost is the time when you feel like shit, don’t want to move, and all your emotional ugly comes and sits on your doorstep. This is a time when any thing unpleasant will hit harder and process more slowly, new ideas don’t come and everything grates.

So what do you do with it?  First off, any avoidance maneuvers don’t work.

• Being aware that Compost brings needed loss so that whatever is next has room to grow helps.
• Knowing what your season cycle is and about when you can expect compost to hit helps too. 
• Rolling with the spirit of quiet, decay and just letting you have a down time helps.  
•  Setting up your work schedule to accommodate the fallow periods gives you some recharge space, and that helps too. 

The springtime of the soul will return and so will the creativity.  Now is time in the dumps.  Sit tight until the season turns.