What's that Sound?

There's an old joke that goes like this--and my apologize in advance to anyone within the vacinity of Iowa, any Iowans, and any Iowans on the admissions committee to Iowa State Writer's Workshop--Iowan walks into a hardware store. Goes up to the proprieter, and asks: "I want the biggest, baddest, fastest chainsaw you have. Money is no object. I got some trees to cut and want them down hasta pronto."

"Okay," says the guy, happy to make a sale. And after ten-fifteen mintues of introducing the guy to different models, the Iowan buys one. He goes away, happy. Comes back the next day with the chainsaw. Says to the proprieter, "This stupid thing doesn't work! Took me four hours to cut down one two-inch tree!" The proprieter, being a good man and a pretty handy guy, is aghast. He takes the chainsaw, goes outside, and starts it up. Iowan says, "What's that sound?"

So it's a cheap dig at a noble race of people. That's not the point. The point is what are you hearing? Is it a chainsaw, or is it you going at the the wrong way? If everything's deafening, too busy, too much, maybe it's you who hasn't got things going on the right way. Are you the hurricane, or the levee? The sound, or the fury? Is it you? I realized that in my life, I was going around being the fury, pushing life to follow me, instead of just doing what was required for smooth sailing.

Here's what I further learned, mainly because I seem to have a thing for chainsaws in philosophy lately: the sailing is smoother once you chuck the chainsaws overboard. Got a noisy bit in your life you've been trying and trying and trying to solve, a raucus machine of havoc that you can't seem to turn off? Are waiting perhaps, until it runs out of gas? What if it won't?

Chuck it overboard.

That dysfunctional friend that for years has been abused by the husband but will not seek help for it or get out of the situation. That parent/sibling/relative that won't, for the life of them, make your life any more peaceful. The person that does not seem to comprehend that you need both distance and respect, and that will not acknowlege that in your life (or your children's lives--we have all known of pushy grandparent who know better than you, even if their own kids are messed up) what you say goes. Chuck them overboard (watch it sink to the bottom if you want to hear something interesting) pick up the oars and move on. You'll find that once they are out of sight, they aren't able to run things as well. They just gurgle, and come to a halt.