CHAPTER 3

It Ain’t Easy Makin’ Life Tough!

   When I say It Ain't Easy Makin' Life Tough, I know. I lived it. Hey! I nearly made a career out of it.

   Mainly, by struggling to convert my mother from the Lone Rangerette, who languished as a whine seller of vintage discontent, into a sparkling clone of mommyhood that might have made The Donna Reed Show seem like The Diary of a Mad Housewife.

   Then I took on the least likely candidates for any Mr. Congeniality prize by gung-ho!-ing myself into the fields of two past marital tournaments.

   First marrying a once-atheist-turned-cult-zealot-to-be who would've been a primo contender for heading the Fourth Reich.

   Then marrying a guy whose passion for abuserobics often landed me into an emergency ward for the terminally dense.

   Dense in the fact that my soul purpose for entering the combat ring was to love and be loved, but somewhere along the line, my heart got miscumbubbled into thinking: The more unhappy and challenging the opponent, the more prized the victory.

   Huh & Duh? Screw that illusion, Casper!

   Once I discovered my relationships were quickly turning from a labor of love into a labor for love, I knew it was time to return to square one and re-examine:

   What's wrong with this wedding picture?

   I had to quit or admit: Life is an attitude! And I had locked my life into Warp Factor Zero, soaring into faces where no heart was meant to go.

   I'd become The Statue of Non-Self-Liberty by announcing: Send me your Wraths of Con! Your Militants of Madness! Your Heartbreak Hotelers! Bring 'em on! I'll make 'em happy! I'll get 'em to love! I can do it — no matter what!

   And Life complied.

   Though, I swear, if I had an instant replay of the cosmic tapes, I bet Life heaved an oh-well-you-asked-for-it-sigh toward my pious naivete.

   What on Earth made me think I was born to make Happy Campers out of Jolly Dodgers? To change them from what they had chosen to self-create? From who they had chosen to be? Who was I to charge in and rewrite their Destiny Drama.

   Possibly, it all started by being born a happy kid to a mother who relished her grumble seat of power. Which perhaps shows how the attitude of the one who greets us at our birth gate, who we are obligated to hang in with until Truth Do Us Part, can often influence how we greet those we meet thereafter. As well as which role we choose to play in future relationships.

   My mother made it so hard to love her, to get close to her, to even know her. I figured: OK! Maybe Love on this crazy planet equals Pain & Struggle. Hey! Could that also mean Happiness equals Hard Labor?

   If there's truth to the Opposites-Attract-Opposites Theory, by being a fun-loving, encouraging, peaceful, sunny hearted woman as I was& still am, then my theoretically perfect match must be a boring, discouraging and gloom-hardened warrior.

   Could it be the only partner I'm fated for must be an opposite? Is my life forever to equal slumming in the grungy back alleys of joy, as my early unions seemed to attest?

   For years I sensed there had to be an exit amidst all the restricting zones. There had to be a state-of-heart where life was not forever on trial. Where constructive love reigned over heel spinning turmoil. Where the Truth Fairy ruled rather than Calamity Pain.

   Then one day, a major light lit up the part of my Life Puzzle I had assembled upside down — so no wonder it never fit!

   When I set it upright it read: It Ain't TOUGH Makin' Life EASY once we stop giving the responsibility for the quantity and quality of our happiness over to others. Especially, others who are unwilling to create happiness in their own lives.

   No one can ever be the warden of our heart, the wet blanket on our enthusiasm, unless we retain them.

   The greatest power we have control over is the degree of importance we give to another's arbitrary opinion of us.

   On that issue, a great release key is accepting that we also have NO control over other people's attitudes. Over their Happy Meter. NO control over whether they accept, deny, love or hate us — or themselves. NO control over whether they smile or pout. Nada!

   However others choose to rate us has no weight in the final analysis of our merit. What is, is. Who we are, we are. Who they are, they are,

   No one's vote counts except God's — who tends to give us clues regarding that outcome via our conscience. Besides, I heard God's Primo Ballot isn't cast until the end of our last go-round. And God only knows how many visits to this Cosmic College must elapse before that flag drops.

   In essence, we can lead another to our hearts, but we can't make them love us. We can become the most glorious success known to the planet but that can't make an angry jealous parent, partner, sibling, associate or child acknowledge us. Nor be happy nor proud of us.

   We cannot force others to appreciate what we do or say, who we are, who we marry, how we decorate our lives, whatever. Nor is that illusionary pilgrimage necessary to our worth — UNLESS we allow it to be.

   But! Oh, how I once nearly destroyed myself trying to reverse that Truth. Trying to make others like me. Trying to make others give me permission to be happy. To be lovable. To matter.

   The complexity of mortal verdicts is so infinitely multi-leveled. Often, having little to do with the person it's directed toward. Usually, it's a conflict within the judger who is desperately struggling not to face some issue within their own puzzle. An issue that we may unknowingly trigger.

   I recently re-met a woman who sought to slice up my back with barbs for many prior years, only to have her explain that her anger had nothing to do with me.

   As she admitted: “You physically reminded me of the sister I hated, the one I was jealous of and never confronted.”

   I was ignorant of the energy I evoked from her. Yet, my very essence rotor-rooted her hostility out of the burial grounds of her subconscience.

   True, I could've done myself in by taking her vengeance against me personally, when it truly had nothing to do with me, other than I was a handier target than her sister.

   So much valuable energy might have been wasted had I absorbed her misguided arrows. Lived as if her slurs were valid. As if I truly deserved them.

   Having lived a high-profile social life for years filled with a multitude of variously programmed people, I still get unwittingly selected as a dart board for others' frustrations when they choose to explode. Guess it's an unavoidable part of traveling through the People Territory.

   I confess, it takes great inner calm and self-control to not take other's negative judgments personally. It takes a very clear conscious decision to view the onslaughts from the observation level so as to see if there actually is any truth to the complaints. To neither side-step if their anger is appropriate, nor take it on and drain the spirit when it is not.

   It often takes telling myself the joke: How can you say you don't like me? You don't really know me that well! Or: You wouldn’t worry what people think about you if you knew how seldom they do!

   Figuring how to discern this fine line is well worth the effort, for when we foolishly pass the keyboard for our life over to others, we have no basis to file a complaint if they capriciously press the Abort Button on our Joy Shtick.

   To me, the only copilot worth having is God. Not in the church sense. Rather God as in The Main Meaning. Relinquishing that power seat to a mortal can be dangerous to our inner wealth.

   A line from one of my favorite songs sums it up for me. It plays over my mental radio (with a slight change in lyrics) whenever I feel someone seeking to launch a power push on my life fueled by their personal frustrations. It goes:

   And even if another seems to be running their own life on an even reel — FAAANTASTIC! It's the best any of us can hope for. However, again, it's still One Life To A Customer — per journey.

   And, heck, it's hard enough solving the mystery of our own puzzle let alone deciphering another's. None of us are privy to the prime purpose for another's existence. Nor how others may best fulfill their personal challenges and destiny.

   Sure, it's easy to quote society's formula for success: Two cars, 2.5 kids, money plus, mucho clout, et cetera, et cetera. Yet, I doubt that truly has anything to do with anything. It's simply a manmade guide as to how mortals view achievement. The main clue is: Rarely does spiritual evolvement enter into that chiseled criteria.

   I figure the reason we can never make another feel nor strive as we desire — nor should we — is because Attitude Fuel is customized for personal use only.

   We can't rev up another to replicate our individual heart and soular goals. I figured this one via unsuccessfully trying for years to get others to run on my Attitude Fuel of Let's Love and Be Happy! until I ended up running on empty. Crashing into trick walls. And getting stranded in emotional cul-de-sucks.

   Similar to wanting to fit-in, to be accepted, liked, needed, praised, protected or defended, whatever the wanting may be that we assume others hold the key for, I discovered my wanting to love and be loved was the central source of my past undoing.

   It was the Mute Button on my inner thoughts, feelings and truth. It was the oppressing opiate I fed myself so I could cope with the senseless battles I drafted me into — all, ironically, in search of love and peace.

   I can trace it back as the main drive for every frustrating detour I ever took away from my soular happiness. My Dreams and Detours. For every denial I placed on my creative talents and even upon my money making potential. For every time, I denied what I could do in the hopes of fitting into a forgotten cubbyhole of life. Fitting in so as not to make waves on already turbulent seas of boiling slaughter.

   Heck! I still hear the inner echoes.

   First from my kidhood: Don't get too successful or rich or you'll never be free of your mother's shadow. Nor be able to quit your sub-career as her cover.

   Then from my first marriage: Watch it! Don't promo your creative skills if you want to keep your husband's ego intact! Beware, not just of your threatened husband but your jealous mother-in-claw on the war path of redeeming her baby toy!

   Then the second union: Don't get too successful, lady, or your hubby will see you as a menace to his image. He'll balance that upset to his ego by aiming even more guns of belligerence at your barely pulsating self-esteem. He might fill your marital menu with even more black-eyed-losin's.

   Funny, how so many of us assume unrequited love means never getting the one you think you want. When it often means getting that someone physically — but not the love and comfort you fooled yourself into believing was present and possible.

   Hey! I finally see what I saw as my definition of this crazy setup:

Copyright © 2006 by Krystiahn - All Rights Reserved