When I Grow
Up
“How do we practice with difficulty, with our
emotions, with the unpredictable encounters of an ordinary day?...[How can]
this ‘I’ who wants to find security—who wants something to hold on to—finally
learn to grow up.”
-Pema Chodron from The Places That Scare You
When I grow up,
I will stop the
futility
of forcing
people to love me.
When I grow up,
I will stop wearing
bras & other uncomfortable
clothes that are too
small
for my body.
When I grow up,
I’ll remember &
accept
that every precious
(and not-so
precious) experience
will come to an end.
When I grow up,
I will rightly think
of
my body as the ally
that it unquestionably
is.
When I grow up,
I will properly accept
the possibility
for greed, hatred
&
ignorance in
humanity,
but I won’t despair
about it.
When I grow up,
I’ll let people love
me
all the way.
When I grow up,
I will interrupt
unfunny jokes
and other unkind
remarks
that demean others.
When I grow up,
I won’t worry about
work when I am
not actually
at work.
When I grow up,
I will stop clinging
to people who let
go of me.
When I grow up,
I’ll stop gossiping
about others when
they
are not there to
defend themselves.
When I grow up,
I will appropriately
let go of
long-held, bitter resentments
that take away from
the
quality of my own
life.
When I grow up,
I will know that
I truly do have
enough.
When I grow up,
I’ll let the mystery
be
a real thing that
I don’t ever need
to figure out.
When I grow up,
I will justly sense
my place and value
on this earth
every single day.
When I grow up,
I will finally
reconcile
the inherent
inequality
conceived in the
lottery of birth.
When I grow up,
I’ll allow my ego
to ride shotgun for
once,
and let my soul
take the wheel.
When I grow up,
I will still
experience
some embarrassment
for my mistakes &
short-comings,
but, I will no
longer allow
my mistakes &
short-comings
to define me.
When I grow up,
I will see the
lovely humanity
of every person
I speak to-
even those who
vote differently than
I do.
When I grow up,
I’ll definitely floss
& dance more.
And when I do finally grow up,
I will most
certainly,
never again doubt,
the way you
and me are
precisely one-and-the-same.
-Me
P.S. Now I invite you to go out and write your very own...Here, I'll start you off: "When I grow up..."
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