Outside looking in

Sometimes when I am doing my morning walking I find myself looking at my thoughts from the outside in.  It is a strangely effective form of self-monitoring.

Left unchecked all the old ways and prejudices and less than savory habits rise up out of the muck.  I am almost shocked that they are still here, but I suppose the foundation of one's beginnings is really set in stone – adobe stone.

Good solid upbringing mixed in with the beliefs of the time and the beliefs my creators brought with them from their time before, are packed tightly against the walls I built to separate myself from them.

I still have a competitiveness that wants whatever I do to be better than everyone else I pass along the way.   I find myself uncharitably thinking the worst about people I don’t even know and who have done absolutely nothing to me!  I am appalled!

Truthfully this is a habit that sneaks out through the cracks and crevices created when I am stressed or feeling pressured.  It is my need to blame something or someone else for whatever is making me uncomfortable.  It is what makes me live alone.

I don’t want any excuses for who I am to stand between me and the light of my understanding.    It is as if I am a stained glass window.  Parts of me are mysteriously dark and muted while other parts are much more clear and translucent, but always in between everything else are the little leaden lines that hold it all together.