If I was going to dress up for Halloween this year, I would definitely go as one of the Origami people that I’ve been trying and failing to make into the correct dimensions for an Honor’s class that I’m taking at TSU this year. I know that sometimes, okay, many times I come out problems, challenges, assignments from a completely different direction than an average person would and sometimes this tends to complicate things tremendously. I had a Coach tell me one time after working with me for several months that on the one hand I could “get” many concepts and ideas very quickly and understand them well yet on the other hand there was another part of me that had to know EVERYTHING about a subject before I could start doing it. You can imagine that I used to frustrate the beegeesuz out of my teachers all the time! I appease myself with this assessment of how I learn as I left my class this evening totally disheartened after learning that I still had not gotten my Origami people’s dimensions correct and that I had to re-do the little tables and chair that I spent three hours working on Friday because I squished them in their little baggy when not paying attention to what I was doing in carting them to and fro the class. I pretty much felt like I could have failed Kindergarten today much less a college Honor’s Class!

And therein lies the rub. I heard it said about “humility” this weekend that the conundrum about humility is that when you feel it, it’s not humility (that you are feeling humble). In other words it’s about being able to soul surf that course between our defects of character and our character assets and laugh with ourselves during the process.

A defect of character is a term bandied about in 12-step programs usually when working on the 4th step, which is about “taking a fearless and moral inventory of ourselves”. The challenge is to be in a strong and safe enough spiritual state that you can take an honest look at yourself and see what is what without throwing yourself off of a bridge in the process. I’m working on a 4th step right now and so I forget that when I’ve worked on 4th steps before, I usually feel more tender and raw about life than I usually do.

If I was to look at this class, for instance, and apply what I understand about taking a fearless and moral inventory to what is going on in this class I can see where I ramrod quickly through an assignment because I think I understand what it is all about when in fact, I really missed the point and the instruction of “how to”. Today it was really interesting for me to feel this really old feelings of shame and guilt about not doing a job well and listen to my mind as it wanted to help find a bridge for me that was preferably really tall for me to jump off of into the great abyss. Luckily, some of my character assets came into play where I could observe the feelings and thoughts and recognize them and also step back to see what I needed to do to get help so that I could accomplish the projects. Such a healthier way to tackle a problem, bless my little ole heart. I’ve often wondered if I’m the only one out here who has these particular kind of ordeals about really simple occurrences in life, but I think the lesson for me is to acknowledge and accept that for right now this is my deal and then to determine what steps I need to take to move forward.

So, yeah, if I get a wild hair and decide to dress up for Halloween, I will definitely go as an Origami person….so be looking for me!