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Dear Dishwasher,
I am a recovered alcoholic and handicapped person desperately in need of
spiritual help. My whole life has been a disaster. All I’m asking for is
one good thing in my life. I can deal with wheelchairs and body
deformity, lack of money and no relationship, occasional hunger and
constant loneliness, but I pray for just one good thing to happen to me
and I’ll enjoy just remembering it over and over again, forever. I used
to be a faithful believer in God, I prayed regularly, attended church,
but nothing really has changed. Time and time again, I try to muster a
little hope and enthusiasm to make something good happen to me. Confined
to a wheelchair I believed myself to be a writer and have worked
diligently at this for over 20 years. . I have written hundreds of
articles, researched countless topics, but have impressed no one. I
tried screen plays, children’s books and even product labels to no
avail.
If I really could just get lucky one time, I
promise I will dedicate the rest of my life to God and helping others.
Have I been cursed or just damn unlucky?
Dear Damn Unlucky,
Damn unlucky yes, because on any objective scale, life is extremely
unfair, unjust, and people are not, absolutely not, created equal. Pick
your standard: money ? ah! Life span?, intelligence, how about the
ability to fit into society, ability to write? Pure chance seems to
dictate a birth in Biafra or a birth in Brooklyn, a birth in a
wheelchair, a birth of a short life. The whole soup of humanity exits
together as humanity, but on many different scales unequal depending on
what’s important at the moment to the observer. “Good things happening”
is a point of view based on your expectations, and your comparisons to
others around you. If a man who expects to die on death row finds the
next morning he is pardoned, he feels happy…even though his miserable
life is the same that day as before. His expectations now quickly
changed, have tricked him into a momentary happiness. All the children
get candy except one. …that child will feel miserable because a
comparison has set in. The duet of comparison and then expectation
starts very early in life creating a long lasting story that we replay
over and over again. Our parents as that powerful source of all and
everything….love, security and pleasure play the major role in how we
script our comparisons and expectations for the rest of our lives. As
parental influence recedes culture and religion are ready to take over.
As grownups we still need answers, and one answer is easy…God makes up
all the justice in the end and this the ultimate “hope” or expectation.
In the mean time you’re allowed to bargain for, cajole, plead pray and
buy God’s advance gifts just like you did with parents. And this is
where so many get stuck --In human spiritual adolescence. This is you.
You’re stuck. You’re asking the wrong questions, caught in expectations
not met. Lost hope.
Hope is a powerful emotion that drives human action
in the modern world, and I don’t blame you for being tempted by “hope”.
It is hope that allows us to endure pain or deny abuse to heroic
standards by lifting one out of the present into the possibility of the
future. Unfortunately, it is this hope carrot that denies us
the moments we need to find dignity and enrich our lives with pain and
joy as it happens. We can never be content with the present moment
forever condemned to be: less-than-what-we-might-hope-for. The American
dream is this world view. Progress is a modern notion that fuels growth
and the never ending demand for higher dividends. We’re taught not be
satisfied; those of us who have little feel cheated, those that have
something don’t know it and want more. Count your blessings. Start with
each breath you take.
You are a writer. This is neither good nor bad. Until
you compare or try to bargain with it. You are a writer. This is in
itself all it is supposed to be. This is you. Continue to write until it
becomes great, not until someone buys it. Hope for nothing, stay in the
present.
Yours,
The Dishwasher
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