What is your Equation?

I've heard the quote "do as I say not as I do" and often thought to myself "well isn't that hypocritical." In retrospect, and now that I am older of course, it makes a whole lot of sense.

Sometimes you just can't help your situation, but that doesn't mean you'd wish it on even your worst enemy. More often than not our brains and emotions work against each other. Half of you tells you to do this, meanwhile the other half begs you to do that. Naturally, I think it is safe to say that we are not always in control. (Although as the highest life-forms on the planet none of us like to be told we are not in full control at any given time.)

The truth is, it's easier to hand out poetic advice than to swallow it yourself. It is also easier--for most people anyway--to listen to another person's situation than to talk about his or her own.

I've always been good at being poetic--after all I am a writer. As for figuring out what to do with my own life, most of the times that seems to escape me. And in the midst of my emotional and perhaps overly dramatic charades I always have a moment to myself where I think "Wow. Are you the biggest bullshitter liar on the planet or what." For someone who preaches The Secret and you-get-what-you-give-so-send-the-universe-the-right-message, what the hell is wrong with my universe? By all accounts my life is supposed to be something of a Utopia. Yet for some reason perfection is as far away from existence as flying unicorns and leprechauns at the end of rainbows. (What's a math teacher who is no good at math?)

Unfortunately for us, life is nothing like mathematics. In math, two plus two always equals four; there is no way around it. For every word problem there is a solution; all it takes is a little memorization but the equation is there--and it never changes. In life, there is no equation but the one you decide to make on your own. Whichever equation you think fits your word problem best is the one you use. Needless to say, the right solution is never a sure thing. It is never definite. Two people who use the same equation almost never get the same result.

Of all the living creatures on this planet, I'm starting to think we are the most dormant and confused. Even the little turtles my units discovered in our backyard this evening have it all figured out. Granted, they usually head to the water at nighttime, but upon inadvertently digging up the nest they built in our garden, their natural instinct kicked into gear. These little turtles with no help, no instruction, no guidance, and shells soft enough to be stepped on and cracked into pieces, were caught unaware and still managed to get it together. (Talk about making lemonade with the lemons being thrown at you.) They are born with the inherent inclination that if nothing else, they need to get to the water. Everything after that is a learning experience that teaches them how to survive the odds.

Seems to me that we just might be the only "animals" who have yet to figure out what mother nature intended for us. We seem to have forgotten that all we really should be doing is fighting for basic survival--just like the turtles, the birds, the fish, the lizards, and well... every thing else in the world.

The last time I checked, emotions don't kill. They serve as nothing else but a damned distraction.