“Suffering exists only as a state of mind.”

He said those words.  He had said them often and
he mostly believed them, too.
What wasn’t mostly was what bothered him.

“All it takes to overcome is to change your habits.”
That was his secret.
“That is my secret.  Go tell anyone.”
He would smile, like you would expect of an old-timer.

“I am not a statistic.
What occurs outside of our conscious control
is mostly unavoidable for the common person…”

He paused after that statement,
waiting for that moment when his listening partner
understands, then waiting for his listening partner to
decide whether or not to accept it
as a compliment.

Satisfied by a lack of defiance, he continued,
“…what is completely of our choosing is our reaction.
Will I Choose To Suffer?”

Through the dense fog of skepticism approaching him,
the smiling man carved away, chip at a time, word by word,
“It doesn’t matter if I believe it.
Repeat the words, listen to them rather than the painful ones.
Allow the mantra to redirect the network in the mind.
I do my work, the mind will do hers.”

He thought about saying more
but there is always a line with everyone
and he was massaging it gently with the tips of his lips.

“Choose opportunity over suffering.
Pain exists and loss exists and heartbreak exists and sadness exists;
These are the vegetables we hated to eat as children,
yet are responsible for our strength as adults.”

He took a step back,
closed his eyes, with that dejected smirk and head shake,
squinting because he forgot that the stuff in life that is
most difficult to learn always refuses to be heard.

“Your chronic condition and your suffering are not synonyms,”
keeping his eyes closed as he slowly turned to leave.

“What you can control and what you will control are not synonyms.”

All the lights began fading and the process of awakening was beginning
as he got that first word in again as a last word now,

“Suffering exists only as a state of mind.”

 

 

af

 

 

(written with pen on paper)