Enjoy your problems.

How is it possible to enjoy your problems? What does that even mean? Well, that’s what I am hoping to personally figure out.

Last Tuesday I went to a lecture at a Gnostic Institute where lectures and meditations are offered to the public on a donation basis. It was at this institute of Universal Esoteric Studies, which is "dedicated to revealing a Sacred Path that exists at the heart of all the world's Wisdom teachings," where I heard the instructor, a Spaniard man of modest stature, say, "Enjoy your problems." He said this during the course of a lecture that was all about how to solve problems. He also said, "Today's problems are tomorrow's solutions.

Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, though, does it? How could enjoying ones problems ever be a possibility, right? Because sometimes, when we're in the middle of a problem, small or big, it feels like the world can F' off and so can the guy driving his car too slow in front of us, or the chick in the grocery store who has 30 items in the 15-or-less line. But, as the instructor pointed out, if we're getting angry at something small, shouldn't we be asking: What has gotten us, our perception of life, so off balance that an inept customer service manager for our cable service can send us to tears?

Okay, so that scenario was very specific to me, and I know most people wouldn't cry over their cable bill, but I did, and my reactive tears were confusing to me. See? I've been feeling pretty balanced lately. Yet, two days after I attended this lecture, when I got a cable bill telling me that I've been late on my payments, and I called to figure out what the hell happened, the call ended with my nose full of snot, my eyes full of tears, and my brain full of red-hot steam.

First, the customer service (CS) agent took almost an hour to break down the charges to me. I’m not as stupid as you might be assuming, even if you know me well and you know accounting/financial stuff makes me nauseous. The CS agent he kept changing the breakdown on me. Simply put, the amounts kept changing and they never added up to what he told me I owed, which was even more than what the bill said I was being charged. When I asked to speak to a CS manager, this manager, to make up for my troubles, offered me the Latin channel or a $10.00 credit on my bill.

“Really, dude? Are you serious? That’s what you got? That’s what you are offering me?” I blurted out. I had some other choice words for this guy, but I’ll save face and leave my response at the aforementioned.

If you’re thinking I was bitchy, you should know that the other CS manager, who helped me later that same day (I ended hanging up on the other CS manger guy; he pissed me off so much), thought that other CS manager was a jack ass for offering me the Latin channel/$10.00 credit. He didn’t say the words “jack” and “ass”, but the ass was firmly implied in his, “That’s ridiculous. I am sorry. That was inappropriate of him.”

Finally, I thought. Someone understands how upsetting it would be for anyone to get the bill I got. Was it my fault that I decided to stay with the same cable carrier and no one informed me that because of transferring a services (phone, TV, and internet) from one address to another I would be required to re-setup my automatic payment on my credit card? Was it my job to inform my own self that my account number would change when the service transferred addresses? How was I to know that my charges weren't being taken out of my account like usual, like the last 10+ years that I’ve been paying on time, and that I would accumulate, in only one month (July 17 through today) $394.01 in service transfer fees, late charges, previous month charges, and next month charges? What an idiot I am. I should have know.

Was I really upset that I owed almost a half of a $1,000.00 in one sweep for a bill? Yes. Of course. But what I was most upset about is how I was treated. After 13 years of service, after keeping and transferring service (in spite of all the problems I’ve had with the service/products), after paying on time for 13 years, and after paying the $394.01 bill, I was treated like a number, like a charge…like I, the customer—the person—didn’t matter.

If I was more balanced, would the cable bill, the lame first CS manager, have been able to knock me off my game so easily? I don’t know. That’s the point.

They say we often teach what we ourselves need to learn. Every blog entry of mine has had some lesson, some thing I’ve learned or needed to learn. Does that mean I’m done, I have it all wired? No. Not one bit. Far from it. But I’m trying wire it.

I’m recognizing that my cable bill situation is a small, small problem next to seeing a guy, the very next day, who is completely paralyzed. I am sure that guy would very much prefer to ‘enjoy’ the difficulty of a shitty cable bill as opposed to some of the difficulties he faces to just get through his day, to just do what we take for granted, like showering, eating, and going to the bathroom.

It shows you how human we are all and how much practice we need to keep growing in the right direction. Shoot, I just blogged about Frank Alioto (who became paralyzed on his wedding night) how long ago? Yet, I forgot (we all forget) the blessings in life so easily. It happens when the day-to-day of a job we’re not pleased with bogs us down. It happens when we get caught up in late cable bills, stuck in slow traffic, or get carried away by situations with people or things. We lose our perspective.

Then, hopefully, we are reminded that we need to remember that every situation (every problem) is here to teach us something. Our challenge is to ask: What am I to learn from this? (Thanks, Ava, for being the messenger of that reminder again today.)

I’m guessing that’s what the instructor meant by saying, “Enjoy your problems.”