sell the goat

Dear Brain,

When I leave a bag of beans on the counter, in plain sight, so that I can remember in the morning that I need to soak them during the workday, the thing to do is NOTICE THEM so that the soaking can take place, instead of just making breakfast and lunch obliviously as if they do not exist. Please make a note of it.

Love,
Crisitunity

—

BF and I had a very stupid tiff last night, and while the issue we actually had trouble over was indeed stupid, the issues behind it were not. I am trying to plan for eventualities that it’s near-impossible to plan for, and the timing of what I need to do in the next few weeks is either going to work beautifully or it’s going to just fall apart and everything will have to be pushed back until the fall. I can’t bear this. I also keep seeing pieces of my mother in half of every interaction I have – I see myself, questioning, criticizing, pushing, laughing, covering. I can’t bear that, either. But the universe does not seem to have much of an interest in what I can bear and what I can’t lately. Maybe the whole point of this rotten month was to push me out of my comfort zone, help me to remember when I was on the verge of forgetting that not only do things not have to be perfect, but they don’t even have to be fun or easy, for the sun to keep rising every day.

I finished reading Judith Lasater‘s book Living Your Yoga last week. Despite the title, this book is not too much about yoga and a great deal about how to live. I highly recommend it to anybody who’s looking for a little more peace, even if you’ve never heard of yoga. I left it with my mother, because Lasater puts things so plainly that I thought she could meditate well on this book. She was reading it a little bit while I was still there, and she came across a story that I thought was wonderful. I am retelling the parable as I remember it here because I don’t have the book with me.

A man who owned a farm with a dozen chickens, a cow, two dogs, and three cats, who was married with four daughters and two sons, came to a rabbi one day. “My house is in chaos,” he said to the rabbi. “I’m going crazy with all the noise of these animals and my children. I can’t think straight and my health is beginning to suffer.”

“Buy a goat,” the rabbi advised him.

“A goat?”

“Yes. Buy a goat and add it to your household.”

The man thought this was pretty strange advice, but he did as the rabbi advised. Two weeks later he came back.

“I did as you told me and bought a goat,” said the man. “Now the noise of the goat, and its tendency to eat my daughters’ clothes, has my house in a huge uproar. What should I do?”

“Sell the goat,” said the rabbi.

The man did as the rabbi advised, and sold the goat. When he went home, his daughters were sewing and singing happily, his sons were doing chores, and the household seemed quieter and calmer. His wife, relieved at the goat being gone, smiled and greeted him with a kiss. The man was content and pleased with his situation.

My mother read this and said “What?? This story is just about listening to bad advice! And being deluded that you’ve made your situation better when it’s actually the same!”

I tried to tell her that the story was about how further stress on a somewhat stressful situation can help you appreciate what blessings you actually have, and how just eliminating a small piece of unnecessary baggage can help you live a more content life. She squinted at me and I’m not sure if she thought this was the moral of the story really at all.  But I’m pretty sure it was.

I greatly look forward to the time when the current goats in my life are sold and gone, and I can go back to enjoying the normal stressors of my situation – the bad debt, the lack of friends, the lack of success of my writing, the clutter of my possessions, and all the other small things that keep my life from being nirvana. I’m sure that after July is over I will find it positively beatific.