Connecting

If you can see the link between the text and the drawing, let me know. I'm still looking.

You're not here to punish. Ever.

The text came to me during a work session.

It's become a new practice: once a day, I put some soft music in my ears and write for 25 minutes without stopping.

I realized I was often interrupting my personal journal to write notes for my public one. At the first interesting idea, I share, instead of digging deeper.

That's why I've published less lately. Partly because I'm on vacation with my son, partly because I'm having fun writing "in more depth."

Today, I'm coming back to a realization that's been staring me in the face for a while:

You can't connect with everyone.

Including the people you're "supposed" to connect with. Family, partners, friends.

The hardest part is resigning yourself to it: understanding that this connection will never happen. Without it being anyone's fault.

As always, the suffering comes from resistance.

If I expect something, I'm disappointed, I get angry, I react badly. If I remember that connection can only be gathered, never manufactured or demanded, I'm fine. Accepting is the key.

Same on the road, in the street, in social situations: if I expect respect, consideration, playing by the rules, I'm always disappointed. Some people are simply incapable of offering them at this point in their lives.

And it often makes me angry. It's unfair, out of line, sometimes outrageous. I want to get back at them, to punish them.

That's not my role.

My job is to trace this anger back to its source. Even when it's triggered from the outside, the emotion is always produced inside. In a factory only I have access to.

That's the only place where I can act. My one sphere of control.

The rest is karma.