I love going to the theater. Actually, I would love to be an actor myself.
A while back in school or in a family situation I would kid around: imitating others, changing my voice, or talking in different dialects and making funny faces. Now that I am getting older, I see that life itself resembles a play on a stage. Sometimes it’s a comedy, sometimes a drama. Sometimes it’s pretty boring and other times fascinating. Either way, we mostly improvise.
There are times I think I have life all planned, having carefully checked through all the possibilities, planned my part, confident that I would not stagger or fall, then something comes along and throws everything off. For instance, as a child my mother or dad would pick me up, preventing me from playing as I wanted. I had to stay clean, wash my hands, behave, learn how to shake hands and be polite. When I became a mom, I’d be in the middle of something and my kids interrupted with their needs, preventing me from doing what I had in mind. Or just when I thought I had a moment of peace a loud noise would come from the children’s bedroom, and I had to change my course to see what was going on. And it wasn’t always the children. I remember a time I was preparing food for dinner guests and the doorbell rang. It was a neighbor asking for help. At my workplace, a colleague would plan a surprise, or there’d be delays of one sort or another. Yes, indeed, this is life. Nothing but improvisation.
That was the past. Now I have learned to only make very rough plans and not too far ahead. Otherwise, the chances of change or disappointment were inevitable. The more I organize and want to be all set for the planned outcome, the more the chances are that the outcome will turn out differently.
Life offers me a wonderful opportunity to learn to improvise, learn to be flexible, and test my ability to change at the spur of a moment. Of course, the big challenge is not to get upset, harbor regrets, or feel at a loss. I think this is called going with the flow.
Best of all, now there’s no need to go to the theater, no need to pretend to be in a play. I am, we all are, the performing artists in this big game of the World-Drama. Knowing this, I can turn it around and make a comedy out of the drama life. When I identify with any one of my roles, I can catch myself and laugh realizing I’ve been playing one of my parts pretty well!
Recently it dawned on me, that I am not the woman called Corina. That is just another role I have taken on in this lifetime. That in the true core of my being there is something much more, much bigger. And I’m not alone. All my playmates are that too, so much bigger than the role they play so well.
Let’s wake up; let’s realize who we REALLY are. When we acknowledge this, life becomes so much lighter. There’s no need to take everything so seriously. Competitive thinking vanishes, the need to be someone is gone, jealousy is no longer necessary. Of course, we still have our emotions. Sometimes I can be very disturbed or even angry. This hasn’t gone away. It just becomes as unimportant or as important as anything else, because I know I am only playing my role as a sad or an angry human being. Instead, I remember that deep down I am not just Corina, but rather part of this universal drop of the big ocean, part of the big creator himself.