Living An Upset Free Life

A Landmark Forum Lesson to be learned.

We were looking forward to this lesson. We left class last week knowing that we were going to learn about how we can live an upset-free life. I came to class feeling quite heroic after prevailing over my first major mishap with my commute on the New Jersey Transit.  After three years of living in Tokyo, I had never mastered the public transportation system. I managed to miss the last train out of Shibuya one night which is a whole other story.  At nearly 49 years of age, I feel as if I'm finally using the brains in my head, the feet in my shoes, exercising muscles I thought were long gone.  Perhaps, "The Forum" makes one feel that way. This was my Phd.  I was determined to take this trip from Goshen into New York City once a week for 10 weeks without missing a class.  As we were dismissed, about 10PM, we were instructed to apply our newly acquired information into our daily lives. Living a life free of upset begins by recognizing the thwarted expectation.

 I know, it will take some time for this new information to sink in . . .

That very evening, I found myself in a Waiting Place and I was unable to stop the escalating upset.  I was waiting for the train to go.  I had missed the transfer and didn't realize that instead of boarding a train back to Secaucus, I had gotten on a subway which had taken me somewhere far out there in Jersey.  The train traversed over wide open spaces of wetland.  That's when I knew something was amiss.  While waiting and waiting for the subway train to take me back to Newark in order to get the appropriate vehicle to take me to Secaucus, I directed the outburst of my growing frustration toward the gentlemen sitting directly across from me. "When the hell is this train going to go!"  I refrained from using the usual four letter expletive to express my anguish, as there was a little person present. The gentleman, who happened to be an Asian man, looked over at me without hint of surprise. Unaffectedly, he simply said, "It is what it is." My jaw dropped.  Perhaps my eyes widened. I was to sit with this thought for a moment.  Then, without gesture of feeling, the young man said, "you're really lucky if you can get a train at these hours."



Discuss possible thwarted expectations :


FUN WITH VOCABULARY
ex·pe·ri·ence
n.
1. The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.
2.
a. Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair.
b. The knowledge or skill so derived.
3.
a. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
b. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.
tr.v. ex·per·i·enced, ex·per·i·enc·ing, ex·per·i·enc·es
To participate in personally; undergo: experience a great adventure; experienced loneliness.