You can't always get what you want

But I definitely got what I need.  Some applause, a new follower, and some perspective.

Three phone calls, one blog-comment, and five condolence/encouragement emails later, I feel better, more human, less grandiose.  Whew!

During one call, we sang the Rolling Stones to each other.  I got that rowdy, I-can-do-anything feeling only rock and roll can give.  We laughed out loud and I said the F-word twice in one sentence, blaming it on negative animus.  We were both women, and of course, we were thinking we should try to control that stuff.  Now, I'm thinking, less control-more animus (but the positive kind that's kick-ass strong and knows it, the way they teach you to be when you take Kung-fu, so you don't have to be aggressive).

One commiserate said that what I wrote made her think about her own grandiosity and how she suffers with desire.  When I quoted the Buddha, that's what I thought would happen in readers (being holy and spiritual as I am), and that somehow the lesson for me here is to continue this trend I've been setting about letting go, this time of my strong desire to be a published author.  Someone I once knew calls this kind of thinking "doing a spiritual bypass."

So here comes the perspective shift.

One commentator (admittedly someone very close to me) wrote: 

 

"I love you and will wait patiently for the news that you've found a publisher.  Keep writing; keep hoping; most importantly: keep submitting and remember that the Buddha was a selfish man that left his family high and dry so he could go park his big fat but under a tree and think, so keep all natural emotions despite what the sages and sooths might say."

 

I love it!  The Buddha wasn't ALL THAT.  Really?  

 

This is not to insult any one's religious leanings or teachers, but to remind myself (by realizing the frailty of all human beings, even great teachers) to listen to my own inner authority, to find my own voice, to hear criticism with equanimity, and to carry on doing what I do.