About Me and Buddha and Me

According to the card that came attached to my brand new Buddha necklace:

"The Chinese Laughing Buddha is actually the Buddha of the future, Lord Maitreya. Traditionally, he is worshipped by people who are in need of money. He is also said to have infinite compassion, especially toward children. His name means The Merciful, and Maitreya also can mean gentleness or kindness. To many, he is symbolic of infinite joy."

By nature, I am not a patient, happy, optimistic person. I tolerate bullshit the way a person with a nut allergy tolerates a peanut butter sandwich, and it seems that my fuse only gets shorter with time. Invasive roomate situations, irrational boyfriends, heinous bosses, and high-maintainence friends and stupid customers drive me nuts. Stupidity and unnecessary helplessness are unforgivable to me.

I hate crowds, traffic, people who walk, drive or turn too slow, idiots that come close to killing people because they can't drive their cars correctly.

Foreigners piss me off, homeless people piss me off, people with unruly children piss me off.

The government pisses me off like no other.

I hate people who refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and I hate that I have to sacrifice because of it.

I hate part time jobs and classes, I hate the way the world works, I hate having no money.

I love my apartment, but I hate that my landlord lied about half the stuff that was supposed to be worked on. I hate having to be afraid because of where I live, because I am a woman, because there are people lurking the streets that are such pieces of shit that they have to attack someone else to get ahead.

I have hated everywhere I've ever lived and half the people I've ever been close with. So it's not pretty, so what. It is what it is. There's a lot for me to hate.

Taken one at a time, these issues are only minor irritations. But those stupid things that go wrong, day to day, are enough to slowly drive a person insane. Rest assured that most of the things on that list that I hate are a result of some sort of bad encounter in the past. I wasn't always this way. I used to be very forgiving, accepting, generous and patient and always willing to put myself in someone else's shoes, give them the benefit of the doubt or the shirt of my back. Years later, after being screwed over by a good percentage of my close friends and lovers, enduring a few jobs that forced me to shut up and smile while tolerating abuse from every level of society (more to come on that later) and moving from a suburb where I wasn't accepted to the crappy part of a city I hated, most of my good graces have been used up. As a result, I carry my anger around with me everywhere, and it makes me cranky, impatient, and intolerant. It's exhausting, but I couldn't imagine any way around it. Of course, things had been improving by baby steps after I quit my last job, but I couldn't imagine any real progress. After all, I had seen too much.

I know I need help. I'd rather not be so bitter about everyone and everything I come across. How wonderful it would be not to hate Albany, not to feel my frustration shoot through the roof over every snag in my life--whether those snags happen seventeen-per-hour or not. So, a few weeks ago, when I was shopping at a hippie store in the mall and stumbled across the necklace, I bought it. A pendant of the Laughing Buddha Himself, ready to make my problems disappear. Ten bucks for inner peace? I've been wearing it ever since, concentrating on it when I'm starting to get pissed, focusing on the happy face of the Laughing Buddha, who in fact looks so tickled it's hard, even for me, not to giggle back.

And I like that feeling, being able to giggle back. For the past few months, yoga mats and self-elp books have been collecting dust in my apartment, and my anger issues have not been resolved. But lately I've been thinking more and more about letting go of this anger, of trying to give people, life, happiness a chance again.

So this is my experiment. I will try to be happier, more patient, less stressed out and less agressive, with the help of the Laughing Buddha, a stack of books, and some meditation. Hopefully, all that combined will be enough to push me back from the ledge of eternal bitterness. It's not going to be pretty, as old habits die hard. But in theory, I'll be a changed person by the end of this, much more "zen", very peaceful and calm and patient and loving.

Yeah, and the Middle East conflicts will come to a screeching halt, the government will become trustworthy and honest, stupid people will grow a few brain cells and my neighbor's German Shepherd will stop trying to maul me to death every time I walk by their house. Right.