laurabsings

Yesterday I was sifting through a bag of little red potatoes, picking out the ones that weren't soft. For some reason I just thought the soft ones weren't good any more. I honestly don't know where I learned that. In any case, I sifted, and at the end of my bad potato-be-gone escapade, I had about a dozen "good" ones and a big pile of "bads" that I threw in the trash. I stared at the trash, the little soft ones forming a potato layer of insulation for the garbage below it. And I had a blast of thought - about my grandfather, and him and his family being so poor and only having potatoes to eat. And then it popped into my head, a potato famine that impacted the Irish so horribly. I wondered if, like me, they all thought the soft potatoes weren't good to eat? I think their parameters and circumstances were completely and utterly different. I also can't assume that they didn't have their own experience of privilege (like mine of trash...

I generally don't pay much attention to what others do. No, that's not what I mean. I don't pay attention to what others do in that way of attention turned into comparing what they do to what I do. My attention tends to be paid in being inspired by their work, or standing in support of their endeavors, whether it's listening, or offering to execute a task or two on their behalf. But paying attention and then lessening my confidence is something that's long in my past. Well, no. I'm lying. Sorry. That part of me that I just claimed to be long in my past I recently discovered has actually been laying long and low in the sleepy part of me, right here in the present. It woke me up last week and started making comparisons. I was dumbfounded! I thought for sure I was enlightened by now. I believe it's very good to pay attention to others, in the way of being inspired to aspire. That's totally legit. But being inspired to aspire doesn't ...