Sept 2, 2010 Bake Off

     Again Bake Off for our spiritual group showed that we definitely have a need for this type of free-for-all session periodically. Spirit Mind Body without a BakeOff is like trees without the wind, flowers without the sun, or soil without the fertilizer. However this photo certainly expresses the friendly discussions that we have at our BakeOffs. It should be noted that these impala disagreements in Africa never really hurt either of the two ungulates.

     Law of the Garbage Truck

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport
We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us.
My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches!
The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.
My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.
And I mean, he was really friendly.
So I asked, 'Why did you must do that?
This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!'
This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call,

The Law of the Garbage Truck

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks.
They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.
As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you.
Don't take it personally.

Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.
Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.
Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so ... Love the people who treat you right.
Pray for the ones who don't.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Have a garbage free day.

The group liked this little piece. We spoke of ways to express this same goal. Members presented various anecdotes :
One person witnessed the frustration of a couple standing in a grocery check out line: The woman turned to the man and said: "I am not going to let this woman steal my joy."

"I am not going to let this person live in my head rentfree" ie with all the resentments that such a person might build up in us.

   Now came the fireworks. One attendee brought up that there are not really any differences between man and woman, but rather just social styles that are prominent. An author she had read introduced this idea and thought this would level out gender differences and disagreements. The group had a lot to say about this idea. Many thought that there really is a hard wiring in the brain that determines differences between men and women. Indeed this has been shown scientifically. But could even these so-called hard wired personality characteristics be altered by social style and environment? There are certain gender rituals that become ingrained in our behavior and that is socially OK but one should not expect another to follow those rituals. In general in conflicts once the conflicting parties agree on what the disagreement is about, there can be harmony ie agreement to disagree. The group balanced their discussion by talking of ethnic and nationalistic effects on social style. To demonstrate how the gender difference discussion proceeded during this BakeOff, at one point we not only discussed but actually took a poll on which way the toilet paper should be mounted in the bathroom -- under or over. No agreement was reached and we agreed to disagree. Hard wired gender differences are well represented in the following photo. Enough said!