change of heart

“A change of heart requires a great deal of courage and a great deal of compassion. The courage is to not avert our gaze, but instead to turn to the various sufferings in our own life or in the world around us and see them.”  Jack Kornfield.

There is a small path through my house and I think I see a path through my health and life.  In lining up some house projects, I can see the target dates are within reach.  What I have learned is that I don’t do well with open ended and  go on forever projects.  The stacks and clutter and move here to move there wears on me.
While I am about to start two community projects, the charge to myself is 1.  Get it organized and 2. Get rid of it.  That feels very good.   It feels even better when in reading between the lines, that I am not needed on tasks that I would enjoy doing.   “We need new blood”  which to my ear was blood let of the old.  I am old.  And while I believe nothing is permanent, I had hoped that I will say when “the time has come”. 
For so long I have thought that it was my “job” to pick up pieces and do many jobs. I have done some that I did not want to do….   I have seen hundreds of folks come thought saying they were going to do this and that…and not do anything… Most of the time, I have picked up the pieces and not said much about who didn’t do much and when it was over, it was myself that was the target for anything that went wrong.  I have had a change of heart and it is my intent not to stand by and hold my community coat.

Not my job, not my issue, not my responsibility.

I will not do a job that I don’t believe in or have passion for and if what I want to do is taken from me and given to another, so be it but the space will not be filled with someone dumping a task they need done and  I don’t want to do.

My waterfall is falling and while I will have to go a pick up the Buddha (rather than pay $800 to have it delivered) the end of that project is within view.  I have put May 18 as a target date for completing the house and most of the garden and will have an open house the following week.   Sometime, I will journey to Ikea to pick up the bed.  It is all good…..

 I even have more hope for my poor beaten up body.  A pocket of fluid in my knee is causing some of the issues and I will try a new regime to see if I can get it under control.  It is my intent to see my internal world with the concern and compassionate eyes of the Buddha