I’m capable of choosing differently, but I’m also fully capable of forgetting that I always have other choices. I seem to shed options in the essential rush of life, and often miss the exits that might leave me transcending some damning ‘either’ and an equally damning ‘or.’

Transcendence inhabits wider prairie than meditative acceptance. In its everyday work clothes, it’s always suited up and ready to serve. And each of us have experienced this other sort of transcendence, when a third way held sway over otherwise damning circumstance.

I’m here, like you’re here, to do a whole lot more than make forced, false choices. Yes, circumstances almost always seem dead set opposed to any so-called creative resolutions. Such might be the true power of the status quo. It hypnotizes me and leaves me choosing what nobody in their right mind would ever select.

Perhaps I’m out of my mind, only occasionally slipping back into the mindfulness capable of co-opting the terrible tyranny of my own unobservant hand. My most powerful moments have been transcendent ones. Whether I think it luck or cleverness, I think neither label explains the slippery experience of discovering a tiny crack in an otherwise impenetrable wall then finding myself suddenly on the other side.

We need each other to remind each other that we have this curious capability, because we forget. I forget under the superficial burden of everyday life. I forget that taking sides forfeits a dimension. That either/or omits much of the very best this life has to offer, and even more of the best I might offer it. That I am a transcendent being by nature, though civilization seems determined to distract transcendence out of me.

I’m reminding myself today. Let me not forget, whether for or against, that these false choices never really inhibit my own potential to integrate and transcend.

©2012 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Unstuck Stuck Consulting