We tend to shy away from the things that hurt us because who wants more pain in a world that seems to never be in short supply of it?  So we distract our minds with Facebook, drinks, and visits to bars where we become regulars, all in an effort to hide away from reality and keep the pain at a distance.  We seek comfort in the words of enablers, who are often friends, and tend to reaffirm that we are the victims and that whatever the problem was, it happened to us and was far from the grasp of our control.

Yet recently, I wanted something different.  I wanted true, honest advice, and turned to someone who has become like a  brother to me.  In addition to a strong cultural divide that separates us, the Atlantic also poses a slight problem in us sitting down face to face to discuss life and woes.  But what I got from this brother was something I had been missing–honest, unfiltered, even slightly hard to hear words, but they were the words of someone who wanted the best for me, could look at my situation objectively, and knew that for me to ever be touched by the gentle grace of pleasure, I had to first accept and submerge in the pain.

He was on the outside looking in and knew that to be happy all I had to do was take a step back, reevaluate, reach into myself, and connect with my core.   His words chilled me because the evident truth of what I needed to do was right in front of me, but I hadn’t seen it, or rather refused to do so.  And in our world of constant distractions, it is so easy to choose not to see the truth.

But in the end, the truth is the only thing we really have that is of value, anything else is a lie, degraded, dirty, and poor.   So when someone asks you for your advice don’t do them a disservice by offering condolescences that you hope will make them feel better.  It is not your responsibility to make someone feel better; it is your responsibility to offer honest, truthful advice when their vision may be clouded; otherwise, you are just another liar in a world already stewing in lies.

I’ve been reading a lot about human behavior lately and happened to fall upon Predictably Irrational and The Paradox of Choice, two books that suggest there is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde very close to the surface of each of us (so I decided to read that one too).  And so Toni Morrison was wrong when she told us we should believe people when they tell us who they are, because honestly, even we don’t know what is lurking in our own shadowy depths.  Instead of being rational, we’re plagued with the qualms of irrationality.  Our thoughts, often clear and straightforward, are laced with villains lying deep in our subconscious, and our actions, sometimes lauded, are often tainted with the residue of malicious intentions. 
So how do we tell someone who we are when we don’t even know?  How do you know what the truth is when you can’t differentiate it from the lies? Do we even really know when we are being genuine, when our words and actions differ?  Do we listen to ourselves or look to others for a more accurate reflection?
Then I found the answer in one of my own blogs.  We’re whoever we are we say in the moment, but after that, it’s anyone’s guess.  We’re not static creatures that evolve to a certain point, stay at that level, and then evolve to another one.  Instead, we sway like prairie grass.  In the morning I’m a focused, business-oriented, take no prisoners, real estate agent, who feels confident and on top of the world.  In the evening, I may be sensitive, crying about the things and people I think I have lost and may never have again.  Sometimes I’m a liar to avoid conflict.  Sometimes I’m a truth teller to start a conflict. 
Maybe we would know who we were if we lived in a bubble, sheltered from an environment that plays with our emotions, often shatters our spirits, only to bring them up again.  We’re swayed by the weather, advertisements plastered on subways, or by inaccurate perceptions of others who we wish we were like, only to realize they wish they were like us.  I’m swayed by hormones, dreams that change throughout the day.  Right now I want to be on iconic in real estate, tomorrow move to Ohio with a husband and a few kids. 
So who am I?  I’m a real estate agent, a writer, a challenge.  I have limitless love to give, but can hate with ferocity.  I think I can fix everything, but only after I break it first.  I’m really funny and oftentimes way too serious.  We’re all like this.  Sometimes fickle, sometimes stubborn and unfaltering in our beliefs.  But isn’t life more interesting this way?  Otherwise, we would all be drones, robots, not even worthy of our own existence. 
So when someone asks you who you are, say “everything you see before you.  What I’ll be tomorrow?  I can only take a guess.”

Rest in the Mess – the first Jackson Pollock I ever saw and fell in love with. Paris ’06

I’ve always been a black and white person to a fault.  The gray area was a danger zone that I avoided at all costs, premeditating anything that could go wrong that would inevitably lead me to treading water in the gray.  So I invariably envisioned myself running along a seasaw trying to balance both ends without realizing that all I needed to do was stand in the middle.  Meanwhile, I would experience the extremes of emotions, anything in between being perfectly unacceptable–so I loved passionately or hated feverishly, laughed uncontrollably or cried never-endingly.  These actions were of no service to me and instead caused me to live in a world precariously on the edge of collapse, while missing the essence of life because I wasn’t living in the moment.

Then someone told me to “rest in the mess.”  What the who?  This person had the audacity to suggest that I was suppose to be comfortable in the gray area, if not happy in it.  I was suppose to accept things as they were rather than brazenly trying to mold my career, relationships, and the world as I thought it should be–into a perfect balance of black and white.  But it has become unrelentingly clear that the world is not perfect and; therefore, an ugly, black and white existence has no place in a world that is beautiful in it’s imperfection.

I am coming to understand (VERY SLOWLY) that resting in the mess is all we can do to ever really be happy.  Rather than fighting against that which is unpleasant or troubling or hurtful, accept the mess that sometimes or rather, often, is life and if possible…embrace or move on.  At the end of it all, we can look back and think: “Oh what a beautiful, imperfect mess we’ve made.”

The look on my face couldn’t have been one worth remembering.  I felt miserable from the bottoms of my toes, through my shaking arms, my palipitating heart, up to my throbbing head.  I was wearing my misery scowl: lips turned downward, brows furrowed, Valentino’s big enough to cover every angle of tear soaked eyes, and I was rushing through the streets of the Upper East Side to reach a destination I had yet to discover.  Even my dress felt uncomfortable, twisting in the September heat and humidity as if wiggling in pain.  Every thought it my head was about how horrible things were, how these things always happen to me, and I was wondering why happiness occurred in termporary intervals, to be treasured and held like a fragile vase, until the rug was pulled out from under my feet and the reality of a  life of moderate temperment, emotions, and occurrences would replace the euphoria that so temporarily had been there, but present nonetheless.

And as I was drowning in my misery, I heard a voice: “Smile, beautiful!”  I turned my head to find a homeless man sitting on the corner of 65th and 1st offering me his platitudes.  He didn’t ask for money; there was no cup of jingling coins in his hand; he just sat there with a toothless grin on his rugged face.  And slowly a feeling of gratitude came over me.  I who had everything, family and friends with limitless love, a career that finally felt right in every way, a passport that allowed me to travel the world more than once…I who have everything, was getting lessons from the man who had nothing.

And smile I did…all the way back to my office, where my mission became clearer, my fingers typed faster, and my goals became less cloudy.  I think about this man on the street.  Maybe he was crazy, plagued by a psychological disorder I had once read about in a psychology textbook.  Maybe he had lost himself while wadding through marshes in Vietnam, holding a gun in one hand, his fear in the other.  Maybe he had stepped over the thresholds of rehabs for decades and fought with demons I had yet to discover.  Whatever his story was, he continued to serve and give in the only way he could and I decided to give back too.  I put the smile back on my face, my mission back in perspective, my gratitude for my life, love, and fate back in it’s rightful place.  Sometimes we all need a little perspective and have to stay open to getting it from the most unexpected of places.