My Fatal Flaw

I think too much!

Thinking is getting in my way of accomplishing anything.

Why is this a fatal flaw? Because my thinking gets in the way of my doing.

Every day I read another story that makes me think, “Why is this world so insane?” This morning I started crying after reading a story about Trayvon Martin, shot and killed by someone who has not been charged, even though it sounds suspicious and like racial profiling.

“Why is our world filled with so much hate?” I thought. But, my thinking led me nowhere.

Every day I hear about more of the craziness of this upcoming election and the War on Women and the possibility of war with Iran and so on . . . and my head begins to spin with all the thoughts in it.

I can’t silence the thoughts.

The more thoughts that creep into my head, the less capable I seem to be about getting anything written or doing anything. I just sit and think, and think some more.

Today, in a feeble attempt to get out of my head, I went for a walk, carrying my weights in my hands for extra exercise. That helped, as I did some arm work walking down the street and counted in my head, only alert for cars coming so I didn’t look like a complete fool. You can’t think when you are counting and trying to avoid embarrassment.

Tired of that, I put my weights in my bag and kept walking, trying to focus on my steps and the conversations of the birds around me.

A car pulled into a driveway in front of me. It looked like my friend Jackie’s car, so of course my thoughts wandered to missing her and wondering how to make new friends here. As I approached the driveway, I noticed men in suits walking back to the car. These were older men, probably in their 50s or 60s. One of them approached me and offered me an invitation to a “celebration of Jesus’ death” including a nicely printed pamphlet.

Yes folks, the Jehovah’s Witnesses managed to find me even when I wasn’t home.

This, of course, led me to thinking about how so many of the problems of the world come from religion. They come from the desire for people to THINK that somehow we are special, unique, designed by a higher power to fulfill a specific purpose, one that makes us superior to everything else on earth.

As I was thinking these deep thoughts, a gray creature crossed the road in front of me. I stopped and tried to quickly and quietly pull my camera out so I could get a picture. The creature turned its face toward me, saw me in the distance, and casually walked away before I had my camera fully out.

I think it was a gray fox.

Urocyon cinereoargenteus, Panama English: Gray fox (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I walked up to where the animal had been, hoping to see some evidence and be able to get a picture. Nothing. As I turned away, my friends the JW’s pulled into the driveway near me.

“Is this your house?” They asked.

“No, I was just trying to get a picture of something I saw. I’m not sure what it was.”

“I had to buy a camera because we saw a turkey vulture,” the driver said. “How often do you get to see one of those?”

We talked for a few more minutes about seeing animals in nature, and the fact that this mysterious creature was heading over the ridge toward this man’s house. We did not discuss Jesus.

“Don’t get eaten,” I joked as I wandered along my merry way.

As I continued to walk, with my camera out and ready for anything I might see, I realized that for a moment I wished I were that fox, or one of the birds that seemed to be having delightful conversations all around me. They weren’t worried about women’s rights or religion or racism. They didn’t think about whether or not they were successful, or were talented enough to write a book, or would ever feel like they were achieving their goals.

The fox’s life is simple, I thought. Eat, drink, find places to be safe. Kill or be killed. Lie in the sun, or curl up in a warm den. They don’t have to think all the time.

The birds’ goals were simple, to live each moment, to enjoy the gorgeous day, to find food and/or a mate, and perhaps to sing their lovely songs.

I came back, hoping I had found a sense of peace, a place where thinking did not interfere. But then I began catching up on some reading for this writing course I am taking. And of course, the inevitable happened: my thinking brain and inner critic started saying wicked things like, “You will never be a writer. You could never be as good as this person. This is all just a waste of time.

See, I told you, I think too much.

Maybe I need to stop thinking and go watch some more birds.

About these ads