Tag: Questions

“…I Lie Awake at Night and Ask Why Me?”

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

Then a voice answers, “Nothing personal, your name just happened to come up.”

These TWO lines are a quote from Charles M. Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strips. 

GOOD STUFF

I had not seen this quote. It stopped me cold because it’s my question too! In the case of Charles Schulz and me, ours were, I think, questions of the things that we had received (his gift for penning and illustrating comic strips, and mine for playing the piano by ear). Or not! Because . . .

NOT-GOOD STUFF

Not-good stuff happens to us that yields the same question— and the reasons for the query change over the decades, years, and months. Heck. “Why Me?” pops into our heads as one freakin’ instant changes the positive to the negative and back again. Whiplash? Yaasss!

THE ANSWER

The answer does not change.

The voice of, I don’t know, someone, says our name just happened to come up. We can look for all kinds of philosophical hoo-haw to explain the unexplainable. But, I think it saves a lot of time to relax into the idea of chance, luck, Karma, or serendipity. Call it what you will, each can be skewed to the positive or negative. And luck, change, or Karma can change on a dime.

Life just is. We don’t know why. It. Just. Is.

Let’s keep going. Let’s see what our name comes up for today.

If I’m Being Honest

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

If I’m being honest, I’m checking my authentic truth for falsehoods.

“Really? Is that REALLY true?”

Women Who Run With the Wolves author Clarissa Pinkola Estés says we must turn to art to find our true selves. Find silence. Be somehow willing to acknowledge a higher power.

If I’m being honest, I don’t know what to call the higher power. I think there’s one. I pray to them sometimes. But I’m still on the fence about “God” with that name. It could be anything. Here’s what. I believe we humans are more than an evolutionary fluke. A Charles Darwin leap from an ape to a person. Nope. There’s something or someone. I believe that.

If I’m being honest, I am absolutely sure I have been specially blessed with more than my fair share of REALLY cool stuff. I am grateful for all of it. I wonder when the “shoe” is going to fall. But then maybe I’ll not bring it on by asking too many questions.

If I’m being honest, I absolutely know that there are few accidents. It’s all pretty much planned. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I am often good, sometimes bad, and unfortunately, plain ugly from time to time. And yet, if I’m being honest, I try to catch myself and get better. That’s all we can ask for, because, well, we’re lucky to be here, maybe being ugly, and still having people who love us even so.

If I’m being honest, I’m trying to be objective about the things I say and do. It takes stillness. And the willingness to work hard to change the things you see that, if you’re being REALLY honest, are REALLY bad. Those are hard times.