Keep It Simple Stupid

I’m six weeks into my international trip, and increasingly I’m bumping up against the question of what exactly it is that I’m doing. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for this opportunity–particularly when I consider the many recent conversations I’ve had with Balinese and Vietnamese people. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to travel, yet that knowledge does nothing to reduce the urgency of the question when it arises in my mind. What am I doing with this time?

When I decided I would take three months to travel alone, I had a simple intention: practice listening to what I want. I knew the primary countries I would visit but I had no concrete list of things that I needed to see or do along the way. I wanted to give myself the space to make decisions in the moment.

So here I am in Vietnam with no agenda and nothing but time on my hands. I wake up and each day is a blank slate that I can fill with whatever I want. I know that this is an awesome “problem” to have. And yet many days I’m dogged by questions and doubts. Now what? What the heck am I doing? What’s the point of this?

When you strip away all of your responsibilities, when there isn’t a job to go to or a dog to take care of or a car that needs an oil change, you have an expanded sense of freedom. Prior to my trip I actually joked that I was going to enjoy the life of a dog—nothing to do but eat and sleep. At first I took advantage by doing things that I had previously considered luxuries: waking up without an alarm, going to yoga every day, and getting massages. I had to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe that I was in Bali and this was my life.

Days turned into weeks and while I was still enjoying these luxuries, the questions started to slowly creep in. What now? Am I really going to spend another day doing nothing? It’s not like I was choosing to scale mountains or learn to scuba dive. I was chatting with the owner of the coffee shop while he made my morning cup and taking long walks on the beach to watch the sun set. I was listening to my body and it was telling me to slow down and take it easy.

Each time the questions popped up, I reminded myself of my intention. Now what? Practice listening to what you want. What the heck am I doing? Practicing listening to what you want. Am I really going to spend another day just walking around and eating whatever looks good? If that’s what you want. I repeated this mantra to myself, but it felt thin. It didn’t feel like enough. Shouldn’t I be doing something with this time? Shouldn’t I be accomplishing something? Wasn’t there some greater meaning to all of this I was supposed to be discovering?

One afternoon I was wandering around the garden of a Buddhist monastery. It was charming and quiet, and there was this dusty pine scent that reminded me of a hundred happy hikes I’d done back home. As I strolled along a dirt path lined by dozens of bonsai trees, the questions caught up with me. In response, I looked closely at one of the bonsais, noticing its thick trunk despite its short stature, imagining the care with which the needles had been trimmed back, recognizing that this tree has witnessed more time than I will ever know. For the briefest of moments my attention was entirely focused on the little tree as my senses drank it in. And in that fleeting moment I had the answer to my question. What the heck am I doing? Looking at a bonsai tree.

Just then I realized how much my mind likes to complicate things. Not content to experience the present moment as is, it runs all over the place–wanting to frame this trip as some epic adventure, wanting to weave some fantastic universal truth out of my experiences, wanting to capture breathtaking photos to post to social media to impress my friends. But none of that is why I’m here. My intention was to practice listening to what I want, and that’s really quite simple to do. The hard part, as it turns out, is not giving in to these silly questions and the “shoulds” that are subconsciously trying to thwart my honest work.

There is nothing to accomplish. There is nothing that I should be doing. That’s just my mind trying to distract me from being present in the moment. If I continue to listen to myself and give my full attention to the experiences that I choose, my travels will be an even greater gift to myself than I could have ever imagined. That's what I'm doing with this time. 

To Forgive and Not Forget

"Today I'd like to talk about an unpopular topic that no one likes hearing about. Today I'd like to talk about forgiveness." That's how my yoga teacher started a vinyasa class last Saturday, and it is just one of the many messages about forgiveness that I have happened upon in the past week. In my case, the teacher was close to the truth when she remarked that we don't like to talk about it, because I'm struggling to forgive right now and it doesn't feel good. It's much easier to cling to my feelings of betrayal and indignation than to sincerely examine the obstacles that prevent me from forgiving. So when my teacher started talking about the dreaded F word, I asked myself to truly listen to what she had to offer and to be equally open in the other encounters I've recently had with the subject. 

One of the biggest roadblocks for me has been the idea (and impossibility!) of just forgetting about the pain that someone caused me, especially in instances when the person won't even acknowledge that his or her actions caused me pain. As much as I wish I could forget certain moments–things I saw or heard or read–my brain has already forged the connections. Those circuits are hardwired now to evoke very strong emotions when triggered. But in the past week I've uncovered that forgiveness is not about forgetting or letting go of the pain. It's not about locking the door to that anger and throwing away the key. Forgiveness is about making conscious decisions about what I do when I feel the pain surface. 

The typical human response is to react with anger when something sparks a memory about a time we were wronged. Maybe we concoct some wild revenge plot. (We know it will never happen but it feels good to imagine anyway.) Or perhaps we make a passionate plea for karma to do its thing. 

We are conditioned to think this way because we believe in fairness and justice, but forgiveness offers us an opportunity to change the way we think. When we encounter the pain that someone's actions caused us, instead of unconsciously spiraling into anger and resentment we can intentionally acknowledge what happened and how we feel about it. It's okay to feel anger or betrayal or sadness and to sit with those feelings for a bit. But we can't stop there. The second step is to choose our focus. Do we dwell on the pain and relive every second of it in excruciating detail? Or do we ask ourselves to move forward and set our minds on something that lifts us up? Which is a better use of our precious time and energy?

Changing our pattern of reaction is easier said than done. I know that I am only hurting myself by staying angry at someone, but I have also realized that identifying as the victim in a situation gives me a sense of righteousness. In a backward way it makes me feel good about myself–look, I have never done that terrible thing so I must be a better person. If I practice forgiveness, I won't have this pedestal to look down from any more and I'll find myself standing amongst the people who hurt me. But if I'm honest with myself, that is right where I belong. I am choosing selfish action, too, by holding onto my righteous anger in order to feed my sense of self.

The truth is that we are all capable of making mistakes and of learning new ways to be. Right now I'm learning that forgiveness means choosing love, even when it's hard.