could you do this?

When London England was receiving unrelenting bomb attacks in WWII, the British officials came up with a slogan and poster campaign to remind their citizens of their duty…

Can you imagine walking past burned out homes and dead bodies all the while being instructed to Keep Calm and Carry On?

  I like the simplicity of this slogan and remind myself of this when I am feeling particularly hurried or stressed.  Then a wave of humility washes over me when I compare my slight duress against those that came before me.

doing the superiority dance opens way for a knock upside the head

Yes, yesterday I was feeling so superior that I found my special friend Marcus Aurelius again.  Philosopher extraordinaire!  I went to bed all “zen and peace”, only to be wakened by our dog Cally whose stomach was pitching and heaving, with the tell tale “I -am- about-to-puke” burping.  I leapt out of bed, ran to the hall, stepped in his puke, then he blew his contents….ahhh yes, … where did my zen go?  Tracking sticky bile, I led him to the front door, mainly so that  he could be outside while I cleaned up the mess.   On my hands and knees, paper towels for initial clean, rags,bucket and soapy water for the big clean.  Nothing like cleaning bile and bits of dead forest stuff from the hardwood at 3:00 in the morning.

I did “kind of” chuckle to myself as I realized that if I had actually possessed the zen-like calm that Aurelius spoke of, and we all try to practice, then the barfing incident would not have bothered me so much.  So if I want to be all zen and peace, then it takes practice right?  And practice only comes in the form of life and its little curve-balls, challenges and jokes.  Well last night, I was the butt-end of that joke the universe threw out…until the next time;)