For years I lived in the certainty that the proverbial “shoe would always drop”. I never doubted that this was so; it was simply a matter of time. I lived in a perpetual state of tension, sometimes extreme fear, at other times a low-grade anxiety, but absolutely always ‘on-guard’ and prepared (for I knew not what). Often I would attempt to reduce or deal with my state of anxt by mentally reconstructing my day, week, month, searching for tasks I may have overlooked or obsessively reexamining my interactions with others, things that must be ‘set right’ so I wouldn’t be caught by surprise.
Many would say that this is logical, if not socially responsible, staying ‘up on things’ — thus minimizing the potential for disaster to strike. It never occurred to me that waiting for the ‘shoe to drop’ was based on the PAST; it wasn’t based on anything that was going on in the PRESENT (unless you count what was presently in my mind!). I relied on my mental faculties to evaluate past experience and interpret the present reality (based on old facts), and projected this onto the known world. A disaster waiting to happen: How could the shoe NOT drop!?
As a mentor of mine used to say: “Perception is Everything!” In my attempt to reduce my fear by anticipating all eventualities, I perpetuated it as I looked for causes and solutions, convinced disaster was right around the bend. It never occurred to me that my glasses filtered out the possibility of something positive coming. My lenses were polished by past trauma and pain, so my world was colored with fear of the future.
I wish someone had asked me: What if the ‘shoe never drops’? What if you were to live life from the perspective that there isn’t another shoe? How might your life be different? How would you spend your time, what would you focus on instead? It is mind-boggling to think that there are no more shoes, or if there are, they aren’t being thrown at my head!!
Miraculously the shoes have stopped dropping!