Not another Friggin’ Lesson!

Graduating from the School of “Life is a Lesson”

• Life is a School?
• Enough with the friggin’ lessons!
• Lesson Vs. experience

People often say, “Life is a school where we learn lots of lessons.” Certainly I have learned many things from the events and happenings in my life and this would seem to prove that life is, in fact, a school filled with lessons to learn.

However. (I know you’re catching on to the fact that with me there’s often a “however,” lol.) Maybe life-as-a-school is true but doesn’t need to be turned into THE life model. After all, one of the best things about school was graduating from it, right?

Do we want to create our life as one long endless necessity of lesson after lesson? That sounds kind of hellish to me, actually. At best it seems a tedious way to go through life… trying to find the lesson in everything. It can take some of the fun out of things. Especially if the voice in our head resembles a strict schoolmaster who keeps the pressure on and won’t even let us have recess unless we get all our lessons done. How did we end up with all these relentless and constant lessons – lesson over the Christmas holidays, homework every night and even assignments for summer break too? Ye Gads (as my mother used to say.)

Here’s the problem with the life-is-a-school-for-lessons model. We have to get the lessons right or we fail. Even worse, if we fail at the lesson the bad thing, or hurtful, or scary thing will happen again and again until we get it right. So the model of life-is-a-school-for-lessons has us all too often cast as the dull student, a slow learner who gets a dunce cap and detention plus trips to the principle’s office as punishment for not getting our lessons right.

Are we passing or failing our lessons? A great deal of tension can develop around that question, and then comes self-blame for not getting it the first time. If we can just get the lesson right, we won’t have to repeat it and the bad thing won’t ever happen again. Oh, really? Hmm. Very interesting.

In fact, maybe a lot of that striving to get it right is just us trying to make the pain and fear stop. If we get it right, it will stop. That makes it a control issue. “I have to learn the lesson to keep from repeating it so I can control the fear, pain and suffering.“ Control issue. In that, of course, is the bargaining: “I’ll be a really, really good kid and do all my lessons right so that no more scary things happen, ever – all I have to do to control the bad things is get the lessons right.”

We already know control and bargaining don’t work but the ideas have such allure we often don’t notice where we have things wired to control. It seems to me our need to control life has gotten grafted onto the model of life-is-a-school.

I think it might be healthy to perpetually say,

“Enough with the friggin’ lessons!”

Enough of the constant learning and the trying to always get it right. It doesn’t mean we won’t ever learn anything again for gosh sakes. It just means we can graduate from all the searching, and blaming, and tension about our lessons. We can bid a relieved farewell to the schoolmaster in our head. Learning can happen more organically because the truth is, we’re built to grow and gain wisdom. It’s hard-wired. In fact, we do it better without all the striving attached.

Rather than the life-is-a-school model, can I perhaps suggest an alternative model? How about life-is-an-experience! In that model, learning happens naturally anyway. Rather than frantically needing to learn the lessons ASAP and get them right, we are freed to actually experience them. There’s an interesting difference between having an experience and having a lesson. There’s an interesting difference between gaining experience and getting a lesson. I like the difference. It feels more open, more organic, kinder, full of choice and opportunity. It feels more real. As my friend Maggie says, “Ya think?”

Much to ponder here as we move through our current experiences. Thanks for being here with me as I move through mine.

Lots of love to you from me, as part of your experience today,
Ma HuLiLi

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