A little goes a long way
Hello from a nasty little waiting house at the train station
When I was struggling, a friend advised me to read a little bit about buddhism and its way to see and think about life. I am not religious and was a bit sceptic at first. To me, religion includes the idea of believing in a God, who created the world and we must somewhat follow/please (IMPORTANT: I do not want to offend anyone! I accept your beliefs and kindly ask for respect for mine as well :) ). However I can understand that faith can be a personal resource of energy especially in bad times and create a powerful connection between people. Which was basically what I was looking for in my life. My friend told me not to look at buddhism like at religion in the way I usually do it and go about it with a sense of curiosity. So I got myself a book called „buddhist wisdoms for your every-day life“ (in German only, book review coming soon!). To summarize it briefly: After a short introduction into buddhism, it tells you, your motivation to read should not be that you can call yourself a buddhist afterwards (and I love that statement!). The main focuses on the 59 Lojong slogans. It also comes with 59 cards with these slogans on them, like this you can keep them handy and dedicate a day, a week, or whatever time frame to it.
Several slogans focused on the topic of accepting your current situation even if it is bad and instead of wasting precious energy by feeling anger and stress, try to accept the situation as it is. And oh boy, I am one of those people who can get really mad (and also really quickly) when having „one of those days“. You know, „one of those days“ when the universe and all evil on this planet made a pact against you? One of those days, you are probably better off staying in bed all day long ;)? We all have them, I am sure.
Here comes the part with the nasty little waiting house at the train station: Yesterday was an amazing day with a lot of sunshine. When I woke up this morning, I read a message from my sister saying something about snow. I thought „wait, what?“, jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. Just in time for the meteorological start of spring, it had snowed over night and was now dumping big, wet snow/slush-rain-flakes-whatever. After getting ready, I grabbed my umbrella and a warm jacket and left for the train station. Soon I realized that the sidewalks had not been cleaned from the slush and since I was not wearing rubber boots it resulted in my feet being soaking wet. At that point my spirits were already challenged, still I told myself everything will be good again as soon as I will arrive at uni where my dry sneakers are waiting for me. When I got on the platform, there was an announcement saying the train will be delayed. Delayed by 15min. 15min. 15 minutes of waiting in the cold with soaked feet. Try not to be super angry about that! That is like keep-calm level 3000.
Then the slogans popped up in my head and I knew, there was nothing I could possibly change about the situation. I grabbed my notebook and started writing this post. These little successful moments, turning the bad into something good or/and not wasting energy for bad thoughts are the important moments, I guess.
„A little goes a long way“
Best wishes and Woosah my friends.
See ya,
Chantal
All images taken by me
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