Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Adjusting to The Adjustment Bureau

What if Life Featured an “Adjustment Bureau?” 

 Time for your Adjustment … Huh. Interesting word. Lots there …..

You go to the Chiropractor for an Adjustment … Usually means they crack your back a few times and you feel better and get up and go on about your day.

You take your car to the mechanic for an Adjustment. Some guy – or gal – in overalls fine-tunes breaks or rotates tires, completing various important tweaks to your car to make it run better. Then you drive off into the sunset, the car purring like a kitten.

You return an item to a store and the clerk makes an Adjustment to your bill, crediting your account and generally improving your financial health with the touch of a few keys.

So ... how about a Mental Adjustment? Since in all three of the above cases, the participant departs in a better state than they arrived, if I make a Mental Adjustment shouldn’t I be in a better place than I began? After all, don’t I need a tune up every now and then if I’m going to purr and run right? If I want to jump and exercise and keep up with my kids and friends and co-workers and many projects? If I want to get along with the different and beautiful personalities that surround me?

Perhaps I’m thinking a certain way about something happening around me … a work project, a person, a creative endeavor, the overly perky lady who leads my workout at 5:45 a.m., whatever. It isn’t progressing or following the expected path … my expected path. As I wrote a few months ago in the blog Great Expectations: Leave them to Dickens, people, events and life occurrences tend to be unpredictable and follow their own path. I may not be able to control and maneuver things the way I would like. My way may not be possible -- heck, my way may not be best or accessible. Okay, I THINK my way is best. I mean it’s my way. (Don't we all think our way is best ... I mean, be honest.) After all ... It’s what I want. But … along comes reality to bite "my way" in the ass and the next think I know I’m sitting down on the ground rethinking options. Along comes a change in tone or an offhand remark or a goal not reached or an email not returned or a call ignored or a project not the way I wanted it .... and boom, I’m pouring my poor misunderstood or abused self into words in my journal. 

Perhaps, this is the time for me to Make An Adjustment. Change my perspective. Choose to make a lot of lemonade with the 40 pound lemon. Choose to enjoy a drive by the water alone when I was hoping for company. Choose to clean the house when I’d rather grab fries and a beer. Choose to honor the people around me for who they are and what they are versus that "person" I want them to be … for me. Choose to celebrate what I do have and what is happening instead of wallowing in the elements denied me.

A few years ago, Matt Damon appeared in a film called The Adjustment Bureau. In the film, life was meant to flow a certain way and when it didn’t these guys in suits and 1950s fedoras popped in and made an adjustment … Crack!  They pop in and everything returned to the way fate dictated it Should be. Since Fate seemed to have a one directional plan, adjustments had to be made periodically. Free Will had apparently gone the way of the dodo and these guys in suits and fedoras were in charge of what I could do, feel, be, think, have etc. And when they made their adjustment, mankind was none the wiser. Oh, that is except for Matt Damon but he’s smarter than most.

Anyway, as I walk life’s dusty road and make discoveries and encounter people who look at life differently and have different goals than I do, I realize that at times I need to choose to make an adjustment rather than have a tantrum or insist on getting my own way. Seriously, if my life were this film, than these guys would be popping in a lot. I don't tend to follow the normal, expected path in many cases. I tend to like to go off-road and explore. I ask questions and challenge the status quo. I know who I am so I choose to live life and dance in the rain. 

So if I'm honest ... I don't always want to involve the Adjustment Bureau. At times I don't want to compromise or make sacrifices and accept something other than what I want.

However, I realize that not everyone will make the same choices or place importance exactly as I do. People are unique with their own energies and dynamics. I learn from them as they learn from my intense, driven nature. So, today I will make some Adjustments. Might tomorrow as well. I don’t consider this compromise but collaboration with Fate. As for the day after tomorrow, it's anyone's guess. I am who I am. I want what I want. But I love unconditionally, so at times I make sacrifices, collaborate and bite my overly active tongue.

What about you? Can you collaborate now and than instead of having those guys in fedoras pop in to change your life for you? Perhaps we can make Adjustments together and save the future, learning a little bit about Tolerance along the way.

                                                                                                                                  -- Jenni

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