Nothing I see
means anything.

I have mixed feelings about this first lesson.

Part of me gets it. Another part of me wants to argue with it immediately, because obviously things mean something. If someone you love is sick, that matters. If your marriage is in trouble, that matters. If you’re worried about money, or your child is struggling, or somebody says something that lands right in the tenderest part of you… you’re not going to shrug and say, “Well, none of this means anything.”

At least I’m not.

So I don’t think the lesson is asking me to become detached from my life or pretend I don’t care. What I think it’s asking me to notice is something a little sneakier: how quickly I decide what things mean before I actually know.

And I do this constantly.

Someone doesn’t answer my text. That’s what happened. I sent a message, and there’s no reply yet.

Simple enough.

Except my mind almost never leaves it there.

Depending on the person, the day, and whatever insecurity happens to be awake, I can go from “she hasn’t answered” to “I wonder if she’s upset with me” pretty quickly. Then I start mentally checking the last conversation. Did I say something weird? Was I too much? Has she seemed distant lately?

Five minutes ago I had an unanswered text. Now I have a friendship problem.

Maybe I even have a personality problem.

This is what gets me about the lesson. I’m beginning to see how often something happens, my mind explains it, and then I forget that the explanation came from me.

I start treating my interpretation like part of the evidence.

My husband is quiet, so I decide he’s upset with me.

Someone else gets something I wanted, and instead of simply thinking, “Good for her,” some part of me decides her success has now become information about my failure.

I make a mistake and barely give myself time to deal with the actual mistake before the old story shows up: See? You always do this.

And sometimes it’s even smaller than that. Someone’s tone is a little off. A plan changes. An email feels cold. I walk into a room and suddenly feel like everyone else has figured out some secret to being a competent adult that I somehow missed.

The facts are often surprisingly small.

The story is not.

That doesn’t mean the story is stupid. I think that matters. These meanings usually came from somewhere. Maybe I learned early to pay close attention to people’s moods. Maybe criticism used to mean something bigger. Maybe being left out really did hurt once, and now my mind wants to make sure I never get blindsided like that again.

So I understand why I do it.

I just don’t know that I want every old fear interpreting my present life for me.

And no, I don’t think this means everything painful is “just my perception.” Sometimes someone really is angry. Sometimes someone is dishonest. Sometimes the relationship is changing. Sometimes the news is genuinely bad. There are things in life that hurt because they hurt.

But even then, fear usually has something to add.

That last part is the part I want to pay attention to.

Not because I’m trying to talk myself out of reality. I have very little patience for the kind of spirituality that asks us to make something painful sound beautiful before we’ve even had a chance to feel it. Sometimes something is just hard. Sometimes it hurts for a while. Sometimes there isn’t a neat little lesson waiting at the end of the paragraph.

But I may not have to decide what it means quite so fast.

That feels more useful to me.

I can know that something hurt without deciding it says something terrible about my future. I can know someone is disappointed in me without making her disappointment the final word on who I am. I can be scared and still admit that fear has a habit of getting ahead of itself.

That’s enough room to breathe.

And when I really look at my own life, I can see how often I’ve reacted to meanings I created and then forgot I created. I’ve worried about conversations that never happened. I’ve defended myself against things nobody said. I’ve taken someone else’s mood personally. I’ve watched another person’s good news and somehow made it about me. I’ve taken one bad moment and turned it into a prophecy.

A prophecy. Over a Tuesday afternoon.

The mind is talented like that.

So today I don’t need to become enlightened about all of this. I don’t need to catch every thought or peacefully reinterpret my entire life before dinner.

Once would be good.

One moment when something hooks me and I notice it happening.

Maybe someone doesn’t respond the way I hoped. Maybe I get an email that feels a little sharp. Maybe somebody cancels plans. Maybe I see something online that suddenly makes my own life feel smaller. I know that little drop in my stomach. The one where the story starts before I’ve even realized I’m telling one.

That’s the moment I want to catch.

I like those questions because they don’t require me to pretend I’m fine. They don’t ask me to excuse anyone or talk myself out of what I know. They just slow things down enough for me to see that what happened and what I made it mean may not be exactly the same thing.

Maybe I’m still upset after that.

Okay.

Maybe I still need to have the conversation, set the boundary, apologize, ask the question, or deal with whatever is actually in front of me.

Also okay.

I’m not trying to become a person who never reacts. I’m trying to become a little less willing to let the first frightened thought make every decision.

That feels much more real to me.

So maybe this first lesson isn’t really saying, Nothing matters.

Maybe it’s asking something much more personal:

How much of what I’m seeing is actually here, and how much did I bring with me?

I don’t know that I love the question.

Which is probably why it’s worth asking.