Boring Movies

  I apologize for not blogging yesterday.  My internet was temporarily down.  I did, however have some very interesting conversations with my wife.  It all started when I was complaining about a beep on the computer that wouldn't go away.  To set this up, I must first let you know a little about our belief system (you can read for yourself Neale Donald Walsch's books).  We believe that before we come into this life, we choose the lives we're going to live.  In other words, I chose to have the computer beep at me.
  Me, being as thick as I am didn't understand why I would choose such a thing for myself.  As usual, she used examples that she knew I would understand to illustrate to me her point.  She said, "You've got to look at why the beep is here.  What can you learn about yourself?  Perhaps it's about control.  You feel as if there are things in life you can't control and this is just another thing, but it's one that's an easy target for you to take out your frustrations on."
  Did I mention I was thick?  Yeah, I still didn't understand.  Here come the examples: "Imagine in Star Wars when Luke found out that the Empire had killed his Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen.  How boring of a movie would it have been if instead, the stormtroopers just stopped by for a cup of tea?  That would be like if the computer never beeped at you.  Now, imagine if Luke had simply found the bodies, then spent the rest of the movie whining about how much the Empire sucks.  Boring.  That's like complaining about the beep, but doing nothing about it.  Imagine if Luke found the bodies, but didn't care.  He just went to Toshi Station to buy some power converters.  You can't just ignore the problem."
  She told me that it is through a process of dealing with problems that you grow to a place where you can take on bigger challenges.  Problems will arise in life.  Don't just hope for them not to, don't just whine about them and don't ignore them.  Another important thing is to not let anger allow you to do something stupid that will not solve the problem.  Passion, on the other hand, will help you try to solve the problem in a calm manner.  Use passion, not anger.  Anger would not have allowed Luke to shoot straight into a hole not much larger than a womp rat.  It was calm resolve, passion for the resistance and faith in the Force that gave him the power to destroy the Death Star.
  She said that I may never figure out how to stop the beep, but that if that happens, I shouldn't allow it to drive me crazy.  To paraphrase the AA prayer, "Lord, give me the grace to deal with shit I can't do shit about, the power to fix the shit I can and the wisdom to know the difference."  God, I love that woman.