Practical Applications for Love 3-16-09

[Lee]

This week I found myself several times wishing my boss would back off. See, my boss has tasked me with being his boss. Why, would anyone do that? Well, he realizes his value is in a base of knowledge he has. He also realizes that his ability to access and use this knowledge sometimes falls short of the mark. This shortcoming is due to a wildly active mind that does not operate in a linear manner. I am his linearity. We will often sit down and discuss a given problem for an hour or more, and my role in this is to find the right questions to keep him focused, interested, and searching for the answer. Once the answer is arrived at, a task or a series of tasks follows to implement the solution to the problem. This process requires linearity and this is where my frustration comes in. The tasks usually fall to my boss. We will line the tasks out in a manner that makes sense, and he will set off to undertake these tasks. A full understanding of the tasks at hand is always confirmed by both of us, but once he sets off history has shown that the likely hood of the tasks being accomplished is just about nil, much less getting them accomplished as discussed. His wildly active mind takes over the second he leaves me, and it is a crap shoot what will get done and how it will get done.

What does this have to do with love? Well, just today he came back from one of the failed attempts at accomplishing a set of tasks. My frustration was not well hidden. Instead of talking about it that moment we each focused on our computers. He was at the computer downloading pictures from a camera, which is a simple process, but illusive to him. He is triggered into very negative emotions every time he attempts this process, and on the back of seeing my frustration it was particularly negative.. There was steam, spittle, and yes even cuss words involved. Normally I ask if he wants some help, then he acts like a twelve year old some more, describing how the assholes at Microsoft must be developmetally behind the curve, and I listen. This time I found a slightly different approach. I saw the twelve year old inside this man, and I approached him as I would approach my children, I touched him lightly on the shoulder, and I said, "It'll be OK". These three words in conjunction with touch calmed him immediately. Then we sat back as we often do and disected the inner workings of the brains our parent's programmed. See, I too am triggered by certain things (in fairness I should give an example, but that wouldn't be as much fun), and together we accept each others flaws, discover our own flaws, and extend ourselves to one another to assist in our understanding of our flaws. This is an enormous expenditure of energy for both of us, but we are willing to do this over and over again. That we have found each other is not coincidence, but love acting in our lives. We acknowledge that love every time we choose to extend ourselves for the other. It is perfect for both of us for now. By the way I am not sure he would call it love, so nobody tell him about this blog OK.

[Charly Hill]

I like your writing, Lee. Love and humor go well together and they both can be found where you might least expect if you keep yourself open. I won't tell him either.

[Lee]

Or the co-dependence of a three year old. Actually it is a hell of a challenge, that I conciously took on about a year ago, and either my patience is wearing thing or I am growing out of my co-dependence. In either case we discussed my departure today, but came to no decisions.

[Jeanne]

I'll never tell... but you must have the patience of Job.